# Bumble: Whitney Wolfe [NPR Podcast](https://www.npr.org/2017/11/29/557437086/bumble-whitney-wolfe) Case Studies in Computing-Based Entrepreneurship – Fall 2023 – Professor Kevin Bowyer _Samuel Huang_ Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe. <https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ui0DdNFUtvhBrXO8y2wE9> Who does Whitney meet at a dinner with a friend of hers that ends up becoming an interview for her to work at Cardify? What is Cardify? Whitney meets Sean Rad, a general manager in an incubator for apps, later becomes the CEO of Tinder. Cardify is a consumer loyalty app, a “digital punch card”. Describe the skill that Whitney brought to the Tinder founding team in order to be a co-founder. Whitney becomes a co-founder for her marketing skills. She surveyed the customers need for reaching out to strangers and concluded that a dating app will be successful, and then organized multiple marketing campaigns in universities. Summarize Whitney’s initial marketing effort of Tinder on the Southern Methodist University (SMU) campus. Explain how her pitch to the sororities followed by her pitch to the fraternities seems honest or not to you. Whitney pitches to the girls that the boys are waiting for them in the app, then hurry to the boys and tell them that girls are waiting for them in the app. Technically speaking this is cheating, since the boys were actually not aware of the app yet when the girls download the apps. However, I think such “white lie” is ok to launch your business. Describe the incident that involves Whitney leaving Tinder and becomes the reason why she does not talk about details of her experience at Tinder. Whitney was involved in a relationship with one of the other co-founders. A sexual harassment lawsuit happened and was then settled, which Whitney cannot talk about. Briefly summarize how Whitney describes her treatment on the internet and in the press, and its effect on her. Whitney was cyberbullied. Her “extended relatives were called by the New York Times”, “ugliest names” were called by an article, daily mail knocks on the back window, etc. These experiences caused dramatic pain on Whitney, she felt like she doesn’t want to live anymore. “It really messed with my psyche.” In the years after that, Whitney “worked her tail off” to relive herself, since “you can kill confidence, but you can’t kill drive.” Whitney proceeds to “change the thing that she hates.” Describe what Whitney refers to as “the problem”. How do you personally see this problem affecting people that you know? “The problem was not me or the media or the story or what happened. The problem was the lack of online accountability that human beings are exposed to every single day.” I totally agree with Whitney’s view. Without keeping track of accountability, the dark side of humanity is amplified significantly by the internet. Describe the creative conflict that Whitney has with Andrey Andreev over Whitney’s concept for Merci. What does Whitney start out wanting to do, what does Andrey start out wanting Whitney to do? What do they end up doing? Whitney’s vision for Merci is “a female only social network where women could only use compliments,” so that nobody will get hurt. Andrey applauded this idea, but he wanted it to become a dating app. However, Whitney does not want to work on dating anymore. Andrey’s original intent was to “hire Whitney as their Chief Marketing Officer at Badoo. Whitney and Andrey eventually reach an agreement to setup a company, where Whitney can build her own team, vision and branch as the Founder and CEO. Describe the naming considerations around the possible names Moxie and Bumble. When women have “moxie”, the have the courage to make the move. However, this word and its alternative forms were already registered by another powerful company in America. The name “Bumble” came from Whitney’s friend calling her husband a “bumbling idiot”. Andrey liked this idea, and the domain is available as well. “Bumble” also makes people think of queen bee, i.e., women make the first move. How does Whitney’s marketing visit to SMU for Bumble contrast with her earlier visit for Tinder? This time, Whitney is “speaking from my heart, about how they can be empowered and make the first move and go after what they want.” Briefly summarize how Whitney views the threat from competitors to Bumble, in the context of technology versus brand. Bumble embeds a handy reporting tool in the app to help enforce the zero-sexism policy. A set of moderators actively look for hate symbols and hate speech on the platform to build a clean, safe community. What is the estimated current market cap for Bumble? (you need to do a quick search online for this) 2.19 billion USD. What is the most meaningful insight for you personally from Whitney’s story? To build a good product, you need deep understanding of what you customers really want and must be able to break the norms according to that. For an update on Whitney and Bumble: <https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/06/bumble-ceo-whitney-wolfe-herd-being-underestimated-is-a-superpower.html>