Dating app Bumble was the brainchild of Whitney Wolfe Herd, an American entrepreneur born in 1989. She was an early executive at Tinder where she joined the company in 2012, quickly working her up to the position of Vice President of Marketing. In addition to being credited with the name "Tinder" itself, she was reportedly responsible for the app's popularity on college campuses across the country - and thus a big part of its user base.
Of course, not everything was wine and roses behind the scenes.
After leaving Tinder in 2014 citing "growing tensions" with other executives, Wolfe Herd filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against her former employers. She was paid more than $1 million in stock as part of a settlement agreement, the majority of the details of which are still under lock and key.
For anyone else, all of the above might seem like a defeat. Yes, Wolfe Herd had done incredibly well for herself at such a young age. But Tinder soon became synonymous with online dating and was a platform used by countless active users on a regular basis. It was growing and there seemed to be no end in sight – so to leave something that popular in that specific way was challenging, to say the least.
But as was true at so many other points in her life, Whitney Wolfe Herd wasn't done yet.
In December of 2014, she relocated to Austin, Texas and founded Bumble, something that she dubbed as a "female-focused dating app." The site was first created with the financial support of Andreey Andreev – Russian billionaire and founder of the dating site Badoo that is very popular in Europe.
Wolfe Herd said that she was motivated to start Bumble due to her "frustration with archaic gender norms" that were controlling the world of dating. "I have experienced firsthand how unequal relationships negatively impact all areas of life," she said at the time. "I want to change this."
And change it she did.
Early in 2021, Wolfe Herd took Bumble public - and made history in a few different ways in the process. Bumble was one of only three female-founded companies to go public at all since January of 2020. But more than that, the move also made Wolfe Herd a billionaire – making her both the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world, and only the second youngest woman to take a company public at all at age 31.
“I think fear and fear of the unknown and perceived failure is what holds people back,” said Wolfe Herd, in an interview with CNBC.com that happened shortly after Bumble went public. “For me, I am more scared of complacency than having something not work out. I'd rather take a leap of faith and fall than stand on the edge forever.”
She also said that historically, many women have been discouraged to just go out on their own and bring their ideas to life. They're encouraged to take on partners who may have more experience, but who will also try to wrestle away that critical level of control. She said she's heard a lot of "don't be too out there" and "be demure, be quiet" type advice in her life, and she was tired of it all.
Thankfully, she listened to her own advice – and is officially an inspiration for people everywhere.
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