Milestones

2015 is a momentous year for Match.com. The site debuted in 1995, making this its 20^th birthday. In a world that's hit with a new app – the next big thing! – practically every other day, that kind of longevity is something to celebrate.

The world has changed drastically since Match first hit the scene. The intense stigma around online dating is all but gone. And though Match used to be the only one in its class, it's now one of thousands of dating services competing for attention.

In honor of two decades in the biz, Match CEO Sam Yagan sat down with Here & Now’s Lisa Mullins for View From The Top on NPR. He shared his insights on getting ahead and staying ahead in a competitive industry, and the impact Match has had on the world.

Yagan is a firm believer in the power of numbers. “When the choice was: Do I want my love life determined by a psychologist or a mathematician,” he says, “I pick mathematician every day of the week.” He happily puts his trust in online dating algorithms and data as a means of finding love.

However, he also admits that they have limitations. “I think it’s unrealistic to say that we can look through millions of people and find the one person who is best for you,” he adds, “but what we can do is of these millions of people, here are the top 100 that might be the best for you.” It's up to you to do the rest. A dating service may one day be able to predict chemistry well enough to identify “the one,” but Yagan speculates that it's still a long way off.

As CEO, Yagan goes to great lengths to keep Match on top. His first focus is the customer. He regularly asks friends, family, and other singles what's going on in their dating lives, so he knows what pain points his product can solve. He also keeps an eye on the competition. “I have all of our competitors’ apps on my phone,” he says.

So far, his strategies are working. Yagan isn't shy about discussing the influence of Match. “If you think about products that really impact humanity,” he says, “dating is one of the most influential out there.”

It's not just about helping people find love for Yagan. It's about breaking down barriers and expanding horizons. He adds, “The relationships that come out of online dating cross more boundaries than those that don’t, so I think in that way it’s very influential and it has a huge impact in the trajectory of our society.”

Big words and big promises, but with all Match has achieved so far, the next 20 years of dating are guaranteed to be interesting.

It's been a year of bumps and bruises for Zoosk.

After reaching 26 million users in 2014, the online dating network announced plans for a $100 million IPO. It was major news, but now Zoosk has submitted a regulatory filing to withdraw its plan to go public.

In an email to VentureBeat, Zoosk chief executive Kelly Steckelberg offered the following explanation:

“Since the time we filed, the market condition around comparables that would be used to help value our company, like Angie’s List and Care.com, have not performed well. While the overall market might seem receptive to a public offering, subscription businesses have suffered.”

The canceled IPO isn't the only wound Zoosk has suffered recently. The company's founders, Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr, abruptly handed over executive control to former CFO Steckelberg at the end of 2014, leaving some to wonder what happens when a founder-led company loses its founders.

In the wake of those major developments, Zoosk implemented a new strategy focused on its customer base and on attracting fresh talent behind the scenes. The company reduced its workforce by approximately 15 percent to better align with its new strategy, leaving morale at an all-time low. The company was in desperate need of reevaluation.

Vice President of Marketing, Carol Mahoney, worked with a team of 3 human resources professionals to identify four areas of improvement. First, to serve customers better. Second, to boost engagement of employees. Third, to get clear on the company's vision and mission. Fourth, to achieve sustainable growth.

According to CIO.com, Mahoney found that transparency was a key issue. Employees were desperate to know what was happening in the midst of such upheaval and sought open communication from top-level executives.

"We realized we had to over-communicate about everything that was happening to make sure people knew we cared about their fears and their anxieties,” Mahoney says. “Now, we talk about our profits, our subscription base, hiring, attrition -- everything. People need to trust that we're honest about the ups and downs of the business if they're going to stay.”

Zoosk also highlights company culture to set it apart from the fierce competition in its native San Francisco. Dogs are allowed in the office. Weekly happy hours are hosted with beer on tap. Employees are encouraged to volunteer in the city's most disadvantaged areas. Three-day hackathons are held to develop new ideas.

Although Mahoney says there's still work do be done, she's feeling positive about the future. “We've made huge strides and we're going to be stronger than ever because of the emphasis we've placed on retaining our talent," she says.

Infamous hookup app Grindr may quietly be looking for a hookup of its own: a hookup with a buyer.

Word on the street is that the LA-based company has hired Raine Group LLC to advise on a possible sale. Bloomberg reports that “the sale process is early and no deal is assured,” so for the moment Grindr is keeping details under wraps.

Joel Simkhai founded Grindr in 2009 with $5,000. Since then, the explosively popular app has gained more than 5 million users in 192 countries. It claims to be the biggest male mobile social network in the world, and has become a bona fide pop culture phenomenon.

Oddly, despite its meteoric rise to the top of the gay dating app heap, Grindr remains self-funded with no outside investors. Revenue comes from a premium subscription service called Grindr Xtra, a paid upgrade that offers increased functionality and eliminates advertising for $12 per month.

In 2011 Simkhai launched Blendr, a dating app for both men and women that uses similar geolocation technology. So far it has yet to soar to the heights reached by its predecessor.

The problems Grindr and Blendr currently face are not unique. The dating industry is massive and cutthroat. Research by IBISWorld found 3,924 dating services in the US alone, which add up to revenue of about $2 billion. Competition is in ample supply, and it isn't easy for paid services to go head-to-head with free options.

The business model itself offers a special set of challenges. Dating services struggle to retain customers and sustain revenue growth for an amusingly obvious reason: because ideal use of the service means no more need of it. A success story ends in finding love, settling down, and never needing to date again.

A short-term solution to the problem, at least for Simkhai himself, is a sale. IAC (InterActiveCorp) could perhaps be a likely buyer, as it controls the majority of the online dating market in America through ownership in platforms like Tinder, OKCupid, and Match.com. Grindr would be a powerful addition to IAC's already-powerful lineup.

It is not known how – or even if – a sale would impact users, but it's probably safe to assume drastic changes aren't on the way for an app that's already had so much success. Although with more money and muscle behind it, who knows how much growth could be in store for Grindr?

By now, we all know of Tinder’s unprecedented success in the online dating market. But how exactly did they make it happen – gaining over one million active users in less than a year, and then to gather 24 million users in only two years?

According to Tinder, there were two essential challenges with the online dating market before they launched the product: first, there was social stigma associated with online dating – the perception by the general public that it was a last resort, rather than a good way to meet people. Second was geographical concentration – people like to date others they know are close by; it would have to work on a micro level before it worked on a national or even worldwide level. Meaning, Tinder had to get active users who were all in the same area to enjoy using it to create stickiness. Think about it: when you download a dating app, it’s a little disappointing to see that your matches live an hour or more away.

With these two things in mind, Tinder started its marketing initiatives on college campuses. Two of the company’s co-founders were active in their respective fraternity and sorority, and first approached them for help in spreading the word. Justin Matteen, one of the co-founders, hosted a party at his parents’ house where he invited his college fraternity and sorority members from USC to help launch Tinder. For admittance, attendees had to show their phones at the door – and prove that they had downloaded the app.

This strategy worked effectively, because it addressed the online dating stigma by populating the dating app with young, socially active and attractive young people, creating a desire for a wider audience to download and use the app (in the hopes of meeting some sorority girls, we suspect). In addition, it created a buzz within a geographically close community – fraternities and sororities on the same campus. From there, Tinder’s team went to college bars and approached non-Greek members, enticing them with meeting other attractive young students via the app.

The strategy of marketing to college campus influencers worked – within six months, Tinder had half a million users. From there, the company had to branch out to a larger demographic. They started city by city, holding parties at exclusive nightclubs, appealing to the 24-35 year-old demographic. As of first quarter in 2015, the company had 24 million users.

“In early months, over 85% of our user base was between the ages of 18-24, but now that age demo only makes up about 57% of our user base," said Matteen in website Parantap. "We are seeing a huge upswing in both 25-34 year old demographic and 35-44 year old demographic.”

Tinder has taken off thanks to a remarkably executed marketing and influencer campaign. As a result, they have changed the whole online dating industry.

For more on this dating app you can take a look at our review of Tinder.

In 1995, Match.com forever changed the way we meet and connect.

Electic Classifieds launched Match on April 21, 1995. By October 1996, membership reached 100,000 singles. A year later, 150 couples who met on Match had walked down the aisle together.

That was just the beginning. Things exploded at the turn of the century, when Match partnered with AOL and MSN to bring online dating to the general public. Match launched internationally in 2002 and introduced its mobile service in 2003. By 2010, Match had become responsible for more dates, relationships, and marriages than any other dating site.

Now, in 2015, Match is celebrating two decades as the world's largest dating service. The site is responsible for over 10 million relationships in the US alone, and has created more than a quarter of a billion matches overall.

In honor of Match.com's 20^th birthday, let's take a look back on some of the ways online dating and romance have changed over the years.

1. The stigma is mostly gone. When Pew Research Center studied online dating habits in 2005, most Americans were skeptical. By 2013, more than half agreed with the statement “Online dating is a good way to meet people.” Some still consider online dating a desperate tactic, but they are in a minority that shrinks more and more with each passing year.
2. 1 in 5 adults ages 25-34 have tried online dating. Online dating is most popular amongst singles in their mid-20s through mid-40s, but 45-54 year olds are just as likely to date online as 18-24 year olds. Some suggest that online dating is particularly useful for older singles, who tend to have a more limited number of available partners in their immediate social cirlces.
3. More singles are open to meeting someone from an online dating site. When Pew Research Center conducted a survey in 2005, they found that 43% of online daters met someone in person after initially being introduced on a dating site. In 2013, that number increased to 66%. But that still means 1/3 of online daters have never met up with someone in real life.
4. Online dating is a joint effort. Many singles enlist friends to help them put their best foot forward. Around 22% say they've asked someone to help create or review their profile. Women are especially likely to ask friends for assistance – 30% have sought profile help, compared to 16% of men.
5. 5% of coupled up Americans say they met their significant other online. As accepted as online dating now is, the majority of Americans are still meeting offline. But given the steady popularity of online dating sites and the rapid explosion of mobile dating apps, that number is bound to change.

Here's to another 20 years of modernizing romance, Match! For more information please read our Match.com review.

You may know Coffee Meets Bagel as the company that turned down the largest offer in Shark Tank history.

For those of you keeping score, that would be a mind-blowing $30 million from Mark Cuban.

Entrepreneurs and sisters Arum, Dawoon, and Soo Kang came to the tank seeking $500,000 for 5 percent of Coffee Meets Bagel, a dating service that uses Facebook profile info to make matches between friends of friends. Without flinching, they rejected Cuban's $30 million offer on the grounds that they saw CMB growing as big as Match, a billion-dollar business.

Anyone else wiping sweat off their foreheads just thinking about that?

CMB went on to close a $7.8 million series A financing round earlier this year, and has now started its international expansion with Hong Kong. The sisters chose Hong Kong for their international launch due to “the highly social nature of life in this city,” they told Forbes, “coupled with the fact that people are often time poor thanks to long work hours.”

Dawoon Kang lived in HK for three years while working at J.P. Morgan, so she's well-versed in the city's dating scene. “Hong Kong is a very young, vibrant city full of ambitious singles in their 20s and 30s who are eager to meet new people but have very little time for it,” she explains. Coffee Meets Bagel was designed for exactly that market of busy young professionals, making Hong Kong an ideal choice for expansion.

Dawoon says the service has achieved consistent 20 percent week on week growth since launch, primarily driven by Facebook. Hong Kong members have a substantial number of Facebook friends – nearly 8 times the worldwide standards – resulting in each Hong Kong Coffee Meets Bagel member having around 48 Facebook friends who also use the app. CMB is primed for success in its new home.

The Kang sisters have noticed differences in the way Hong Kong members and US members use the app. Dawoon says: “On average, 72 percent of Hong Kong members log in every day to check their Bagel. Of these, 77 percent are connecting on an iPhone. They log in 4.3 times a day (33 percent higher than US members) and spend a total of 7.7 minutes a day (117 percent higher than US members).”

On the other hand, the gender ratio is similar in HK, NYC, and Washington DC (62 percent of members in Hong Kong are female). Academic achievements are also similar, with 98 percent of membership in both HK and the US boasting bachelors degrees.

From here, the Kangs plan to continue their international expansion, perhaps one day to their birth country of South Korea.