Whitney Wolfe Herd started off as a Salt Lake City girl who majored in International Studies in college. She then traveled to South East Asia to volunteer in an orphanage before becoming the Marketing guru helping to get Tinder off the ground in its early days. Now, she is founder and CEO of her very own startup, the woman-led dating app Bumble, which has an estimated net worth of over $1 billion USD. Although Wolfe Herd has had her fair share of setbacks, she has achieved all of this by the age of 28 and isn’t slowing down any time soon.
Wolfe Herd was
rejected from a marketing program in college and ended up majoring in
International Studies. However, when she returned home from travelling Asia, she
decided to follow her passion and found herself spearheading the marketing
campaign for a small startup dating app named Tinder. Although she helped the
startup grow from a budding idea into a $750 million business, she was
stripped of her title as CEO and let go from the startup after a tumultuous
break up with the co-founder, Justin Mateen. Ultimately, she took Tinder to
court for sexual harassment and discrimination and the case was settled out of
court. However, Wolfe Herd was not walking away from the tech game with her
tail between her legs; she used her experience at Tinder to fuel her passion
for creating change and fighting back against sexism in the tech industry.
Originally an app she
named Merci, the idea for Bumble was to create a community for women based on
compliments and positivity. Whitney’s own experience with online bullying and
harassment ignited an even bigger passion to help women and end sexism. After making public
sexual harassment allegations against Tinder, she became the recipient of online
bullying on social media; a story all too familiar for women who expose their harasser
in the public sphere. The bullying turned into rape and murder threats and she
eventually deleted all social media and returned to her hometown a broken woman.
However, if there is one thing Whitney has it’s the determination to turn a
traumatic event into an opportunity to succeed as a business woman.
In 2014, aged 24, she
launched Bumble, a women-led dating app that requires the woman to make the
first move. Today, the business is estimated to be worth more than $1 billion
and is growing by 60,000 users per day. The inspiration for Bumble came from her
observation of the gender imbalances in the online dating environment. She said
in a recent interview with Tim Ferris that women often feel inundated with
cheesy one-liners and tiresome messages from men that it takes the fun out of online dating. Therefore, Bumble is a
way for women to take back their power and have the confidence to make the
first contact with whom they choose. In addition, it has a feature called
Bumble BFF which lets you connect with women in your area and build
friendships.
Whitney Wolfe Herd is an
inspiring woman that other women can learn a lot from. At such a young age she
has taken a humiliating experience with Tinder and built a billion dollar
empire run mostly by women, for women. Refusing to let anyone stop her from
achieving her dreams, she is determined to inspire other women to make the
first move in all areas of life. Speaking at the 2017 Fortune Most Powerful
Women Next Gen Summit, Whitney addressed the audience with a powerful message, “If
people are telling you that they don’t believe what you’re doing, that means
you’re doing something out of their comfort zone. And generally, people don’t
want to be taken out of their comfort zone because it’s outside of the status
quo,” she said. “If you’re doing anything disruptive, and if you know it to be
good and true and progressive, let the naysayers fuel you to work harder and go
faster and sleep less. Well, take care of yourself, but you know what I mean.”
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