Since the Bumble hit IPO at the height of the pandemic, investor enthusiasm for the dating site has cooled. At least Bumble stock is currently trading at around $11 per share, a far cry from the $76 it reached on its first day as a public company in February 2021.
Investors are, after all, fickle, which is a challenge for nearly every publicly traded company. The greater concern for Bumble is user fatigue. People aren’t downloading dating apps as enthusiastically as they once were, which suggests less subscription revenue. Younger people, especially, are wanting to use other platforms to search out love, including TikTok, and even Snapchat Discord.
Now it’s Lidiane Jones’ job to reverse these trends. This is the difficult task facing many CEOs tasked with rescuing businesses from the post-pandemic doldrums: in publishingIN retail sales and Automotive branchamongst other industries. The end result is, after all, uncertain. But Jones, who was recruited to Bumble in January from Slack — where she was also hired as chief change officer and left after just 10 months — has a game plan, as she recently explained over a din of lunchtime diners at a San Francisco restaurant.
Some of them are related to artificial intelligence, which Bumble’s rivals are also leaning into this harder. Part of this has to do with “margin expansion.” Jones told me that lots of it’s about bringing joy back to an experience that isn’t any longer enjoyable for nearly half of the participants. Much of that conversation follows, edited for length and clarity.
Like many CEOs right away, you’ve got found yourself in a situation where you’ve got needed to lay off people almost immediately – in Bumble’s case, 30% of your 1,200 employees. That’s quite a bit to know quickly. How did you take care of it?
I had some onboarding occurring before I even began. (Bumble founder) Whitney (Wolfe Herd) was incredibly involved in my onboarding process, which put me on a quick track to learning the organization. She really supported me. I believe it made an enormous difference. I’m also deeply convinced that in case you are planning a change, be really thorough and thoughtful in order not to reveal the company to an extended, multi-stage process.
In the second quarter of this 12 months, you relaunch the Bumble app. I read that you simply are reconsider whether women should make the first movewhich looks as if an enormous change.
Our brand awareness is so high it’s amazing. And in case you ask anyone about Bumble, they’ll say it’s about women, and the core of that does not change. We are a company that actually cares about empowering women.
But as we approach our tenth anniversary, it’s an amazing time to think about how we are able to best serve our mission. For us, it’s really about how we express women’s empowerment today and over the next 10 years. What we really need to do is move from women taking the first step to women deciding (who should take the first step). We give women more control and suppleness to decide on what is true for them.
By inviting women to make the first move, do you’re thinking that Bumble has had an impact on who uses the platform? Friends have told me that men they meet on the platform are likely to be more passive, which sometimes causes them dismay.
Historically, we have seen that lots of men who consider in women’s empowerment will come to Bumble. I’ve heard this sentiment about passivity (men) a number of times, but not that always. Our ultimate goal is definitely to offer our customers with an amazing experience.
Other areas of interest include security and artificial intelligence. What can Bumble users expect after the relaunch?
If you’re thinking that about the development of this amazing technology in the context of dating, it is barely pretty much as good and as protected as the company’s data security and security practices. Our customers’ privacy and trust have all the time been extremely strong; we have now all the time had a high bar for healthy connections.
We’ve developed lots of AI and lots of technology over the last 10 years that actually protects in-app behavior, and we are able to tune the models to reflect our values and security guidelines. But we would like to go even further. An enormous a part of Bumble’s DNA advocates for policies that make women feel protected, and we would like to be at the forefront of not only driving the great advancements in technology, but in addition advocating for policies that keep people protected online.
Bumble has long physically verified its users to make sure user profiles should not bots or scams, but doesn’t check criminal background. Will this modification with artificial intelligence?
We check the background. We will certainly work with different (players). But for me it is a priority. I believe that is one other essential step for us.
What else should people know about the upcoming update?
This is actually the starting of a new pace of innovation for Bumble. This is the starting of a new set of experiences. We update the appearance of the profile, we update the visual language of the application, we would like to have more contact with our users, and the tone of voice must be fun and joyful. We’re taking a look at AI to assist amplify a few of the turning points in people’s lives which might be particularly concerning, like making a profile, which will be really difficult. We really have the desire to make dating fun again – that is really the most vital thing.
User fatigue is difficult to beat. Will the new application be accompanied by a new user acquisition strategy?
Bumble has all the time been great at social marketing: organizing events and finding ambassadors who really need to represent the brand. This has been somewhat disrupted during the pandemic; we’re taking this moment before our launch to resume lots of community events because there are lots of people who find themselves looking forward to connecting in person again, and that is the place to begin.
Bumble has all the time been about greater than just dating. Dating plays an enormous role on this, but we have now all the time believed that connections and friendships are needed, so we’re increasing our investment in our capability for friendship because we consider that many individuals just want to begin by hanging out with other people.
Bumble for Friends launched last 12 months. Will we ever see you develop this as a standalone entity?
We are still collecting customer feedback. I’ve heard enthusiastic cases of each. We’re still investigating it.
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