THE PATH TO FINDING LOVE IS WORTH IT, SAYS TINDER CEO
For Elie Seidman of Tinder, love is worth searching for. “The core of it is you know it when you have it and until you have it you’re looking for it,” he said, during his first visit to India last month. As more people take to dating apps in India, one of the world’s youngest countries, revenue in the online dating segment hit $15 million in 2018, according to market researcher Statista.
“I think that is a massive societal change, probably one of the biggest we’ve seen in our life,” Seidman said. In India, Tinder competes with apps like Bumble, Truly Madly and OK Cupid. Seidman said markets like this one, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam will be the future for growth, based purely on population-driven factors.
Edited excerpts from an interview…
What’s on the agenda for this visit?
This is an exciting time for us in India. We started out here three years ago. With young people, this device, these smartphones, have proliferated and they are being used for everything — books, music, content and video. We’re not sitting around a TV. That is number one.
Number two is we’ve actually become an important business in India. We are the second grossing app on the App Store here in India. So, we’re here to listen and learn and try to find new ideas for Tinder.
What’s the most surprising thing about the way Indians use Tinder compared to the rest of the world?
One of the things that stood out to me is that Indian women on Tinder super-like — which is a way of showing more interest — at a rate that is much higher than women anywhere else in the world.
How much of the company’s focus is on data privacy?
We are compliant with the GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] around the globe. Even though that’s a European regulation. We think that data privacy is really important and that its compliance is very important around the world.
The other differentiator is that our business model is driven by the sale of premium features. We’ve become a very successful business because of that. Last year we clocked $800 million in revenue, approximately double of the year before. It’s a business not driven by ads and really the ads part is where you get into the complexity that other apps might be facing.
How do you build trust on Tinder?
We have a large community team that directly monitors trust and safety. This consists of human moderators, technologists, engineers and product managers. Users also report suspicious users, which is incredibly important. And there is a bunch of artificial intelligence and machine learning that’s helping us monitor what’s happening. But we always say to people that we didn’t create a parallel universe on Tinder, so the same thoughtful- ness you would use in the real world, you should use on Tinder and any social app.
How critical is India for Tinder?
India is the biggest market for us in Asia. We think it has the biggest potential in the future. We think of the app as another tool in your life to make your life better.
Do you think the freemium model of sub- scription is sustainable for the app economy in India, especially for Tinder?
If you look at the subscription business model for us and why it’s been so successful I think it comes back to why this product is so important. If you think about the things you spend money on in a given month and you think about the importance of this in your life, it’s extremely important and the evidence of that is people are willing to pay.
I would expect the freemium model to remain the dominant way that we make money. A small minority are paying for Tinder. And that small percentage generates 95% of our revenue. It’s large enough because of the scale of our community.
Is Tinder being pitched as an app to find love and make friends or does it want to promote singlehood?
Everybody chooses their own path. Over the past 50 years, people have decided that this phase of life is important. In the US, in 1950, people got married at 22, I think today it’s 29. I think that means the path to the destination is seen as as important as the destination. That’s what we are saying, across all platforms, that the path is an exciting part of life.