Hinge Dating App CEO: Everyone Said Hinge Was A TERRIBLE idea! The 7 Love & Dating Secrets From Hinge’s Founder! AI Will Change Love & Dating!

Justin McLeod (0:00)

We've done a deep dive research studies on how can we help everyone to become more successful daters.

Steven Bartlett (0:05)

So what makes data successful?

Justin McLeod (0:07)

So the faster that you can, the faster you're going to find someone who's like, yes, this is the type of person that I want to be with.

SPEAKER_3 (0:15)

Justin McLeod, the founder and CEO of the fastest growing dating app, Hinge.

Justin McLeod (0:20)

I built Hinge because I wanted a girlfriend, but we had to suffer through a lot of failure to finally get to success.

Steven Bartlett (0:25)

Why does the world need another dating app?

Justin McLeod (0:28)

I think it just needs one, really, that works well.

Steven Bartlett (0:30)

I'm going to be completely honest. Much of the reason why I never used dating apps is I had no success. So if I wanted to be the world's worst dating app user, what would I have to do?

Justin McLeod (0:39)

A lot of filtered photos with you in sunglasses are hanging out with a lot of friends. One word answers to your prompts, just like everyone.

Steven Bartlett (0:46)

What about serial daters?

Justin McLeod (0:47)

Some of us have models in our head that are exceedingly narrow. They have to be over six foot and need to work in this type of job. So you go out and you're just looking for some reason to say no because it doesn't fit your model. Give people more of a chance.

Steven Bartlett (1:01)

AI, the conversation around AI and relationships has always been quite pessimistic, sex robots and stuff.

Justin McLeod (1:05)

Yeah, that's certainly not going to be what Hinge is working on. The bigger leap though is to move much closer to a matchmaker model and setting up dates with a much higher likelihood of success. It's happening already. It used to take a thousand swipes in order to get on a date and now about 50 likes.

Steven Bartlett (1:23)

But have you seen any changes in the dating culture?

Justin McLeod (1:26)

Yeah, in order to get on a date, people need to know this.

Steven Bartlett (1:31)

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Justin, what is your job title?

Justin McLeod (2:11)

I'm the founder and CEO of Hinge.

Steven Bartlett (2:14)

And to quantify what Hinge is, and the impact it has on the world, how many people use it as a product, its reach. Can you give me some color towards that?

Justin McLeod (2:26)

Like I can say that today we're setting up a date about every two seconds. So every other second, someone's going on a date because of Hinge. We've created millions of relationships and I'd say marriages at this point. The scale is far beyond I think what I imagined when I started this thing.

Steven Bartlett (2:44)

I probably need to understand you a little bit better because it's so abundantly clear from all the CEOs that I've interviewed that there's often a series of catalyst moments that send them on the path indirectly. I mean, it's like the first domino that falls in their life that brings them to be sat here today for us to be talking about it. What are those first dominoes in your life that fell?

Justin McLeod (3:06)

I don't think there are a number of them that probably like ended up defining my life. I was an only child, had an entrepreneur father who had ran a small business and my mom worked for my dad. I was sort of naturally as a kid good at math, I was good at computer science, I would spend my summers at nerd camp going and learning how to like code as a kid. And I will say that addiction is the last piece because I wanted, I like was desperate to be cool, was desperate to fit in. And that actually became like a huge piece of it as well for me.

Steven Bartlett (3:42)

In your first year of university, you went to see a drug and alcohol counselor, is that correct?

Justin McLeod (3:46)