Tinder’s new chief is out to change its hook-up-app reputation

The dating app has been testing a ‘double dating’ feature in Europe. Early results have been encouraging, and it will be rolled out globally in months.

When Tinder made its debut nearly 13 years ago, the app changed online dating, but the pandemic boom in dating apps has since waned, and Gen Z users appear more skeptical of online dating.

Tinder, the app that revolutionised online dating for millennials, is falling flat with Gen Z. Its new leader wants to change that.

His plan? Shake off Tinder’s reputation as a site to go to mostly for hook-ups.

“Think of Tinder like a bar where people come together to meet new people,” Spencer Rascoff, chief executive of Tinder parent Match Group, said in an interview. “We have to innovate to drive more people into our establishment, and that means renovating our bar.”

Just a few months into running Match, Rascoff said last week that he would take on the top job at Tinder, too. Faye Iosotaluno, appointed as Tinder’s CEO last year, wrote on LinkedIn that she would step down in July.

Match Group CEO Spencer Rascoff. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg News/WSJ

Rascoff, 49, laid out his vision for the app in an internal memo late Tuesday. He called on staff to speed up new product changes, leverage artificial intelligence and bake in features that boost user safety. Employees should focus on improving people’s experiences on the app, even at the expense of short-term revenue, he said.

“Users don’t want more matches, they want better ones,” Rascoff wrote in the memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Tinder’s team is also creating low-pressure ways for people to meet on the app, aimed at wooing Gen Z.

One example: Tinder has been testing a “double dating” feature in Europe where users can pair up with friends and match with other pairs for dates. Early results have been encouraging, and the feature will be rolled out globally on Tinder this summer, Rascoff said.

Rascoff has said that fixing Tinder, which makes up more than half of Match’s revenue, is one of his biggest priorities.

“This generation of Gen Z, 18 to 28 — it’s not a hook-up generation. They don’t drink as much alcohol, they don’t have as much sex,” he told investors this month. “We need to adapt our products to accept that reality.”

Rascoff, co-founder and former CEO of home-listing portal Zillow Group, is set to explain more of his vision for Tinder and Match’s other apps, like Hinge, in an onstage interview at the Journal’s Future of Everything event in New York on Wednesday.

When Tinder made its debut nearly 13 years ago, the app changed online dating. With a simple swipe, users could express interest in a match. Millennials embraced it, and growth soared. Tinder became a top dating app in dozens of countries worldwide.

But the pandemic boom in dating apps has since waned, and Gen Z users appear more sceptical of online dating. Some users have grown fatigued of swiping, bemoaning a rise in bad etiquette like “ghosting” or fake accounts. Others simply prefer meeting people through in-person gatherings like running clubs.

Match has been contending with pressure from activist investors to increase sales and revive its growth. The company this month said it would cut 13% of its workers, or about 325 employees, a move estimated to save $100 million annually. The cuts will also reduce management layers, including around one in five managers overall.

The less bureaucratic approach extends to Tinder. Rascoff said he wants employees working on the Tinder app to operate in small product pods instead of large teams. “Small teams are more nimble than large ones,” he wrote in the memo, “and can innovate rapidly with accountability.”

Wall Street Journal