Justin McLeod was a young student at Harvard Business School when he came up with the idea for a dating app designed to be deleted—or Hinge, as we know it. Today, it is the second most downloaded dating app in the English-speaking market, behind only Tinder. By 2023, more than 14 million people signed up to find their perfect match on Hinge, according to the company.
But in 2011, this entrepreneur with 20 faces was so desperate to get people to sign up for his app that he even bribed them with chocolate.
At the time, online dating was mostly done on desktops and required real effort. The idea of swiping to find the love of your life (or a one-night stand) on your phone seemed strange.
So convincing fellow students (who had no shortage of opportunities to meet people in class, dorms and parties) to sign up for Hinge was a challenge, McLeod says. Good luck.
“I remember the days when I was running around the college library in Washington, DC, at this college, Georgetown, and bribing kids with KitKats to come try my app,” he laughs. “We would get more users a day – maybe, if that.”
Funding Hinge also required a lot of leverage, with McLeod recalling that he had to “beg and borrow a lot” to get the app off the ground.
“I was out there networking and talking to as many people as I could and taking money from anyone who would give it to me. That is what is needed sometimes,” he says. I was collecting—me—basically, $5,000 checks and R10,000 checks to start Hinge.”
Hinge CEO’s big break comes from McKinsey job offer
These days, it’s hard enough to find an internship while you’re studying—let alone land a full-time job right after graduation. But for McLeod, it wasn’t like that: He hadn’t finished his second year of business school when McKinsey offered him a place in his graduate program.
A career in consulting would have put McLeod on the path to a six-figure salary, Glassdoor estimates that the average consultant earns between $173,000 and $233,000 a year. McLeod’s sign-up bonus alone was $12,000.
It was the big break he needed—to finally get Hinge off the ground.
He says: “I was able to continue to postpone my application for a few years,” he remembers while adding that he “borrowed” money to make his app.
Once Hinge became successful and they saw that I was the founder, they said, ‘You’re probably not going to be an analyst here, are you?’ And, of course, at that time I had to pay it.”
Why did McLeod choose a very risky business path when he could have had a comfortable career at McKinsey?
“I turned down my offer and started working at Hinge, because I was passionate about the idea. Once I started thinking about it, it was hard for me to stop. I knew very well that this is what I was meant to work on.”
Indeed, it paid off: In 2015, Hinge had raised $26.35 million and had an estimated valuation of $75.5 million, before Match Group bought the company from McLeod for an undisclosed amount.
The founder treated himself and his family to a $13 million apartment in New York recently. Meanwhile, Hinge—where he still serves as CEO—brought in $396 million in revenue last year.
Advice for Gen Z business students
Like McLeod, young people today aren’t dreaming of holding a 9-to-5 gig after college or climbing the corporate ladder. Research consistently shows that they want to be their own boss.
And they’re already making those dreams come true: In fact, the second-fastest growing job among Gen Z is now “founder,” according to LinkedIn.
His advice to young entrepreneurs? “You have to be pessimistic and ruthless at the same time – that’s how you build something big and successful.”
McLeod explains: “Some people who are also in the unrealistic camp, they dream, but they never act, and people in the very cruel camp do things but nothing happens. that big or game changing.
Instead, he says, successful founders like him always balance these two things: Of course, dream big, but “be aware of the practical day-to-day realities so that live.”
Meanwhile, for Gen Zers who don’t know what they want to do post-school-wise, his advice is to stop thinking about it—just get a job, whether it’s starting your own business or dipping our toes into the rat race.
“I think that people who get involved in it, say, what will my job be?” What will I do? They miss the opportunity to develop that passion, that interest for something in the world,” he says.
“I couldn’t think of what I want if I sat down and thought about it. I had to work a summer in health care and realized that this is not it. I worked on a few other startup ideas before Hinge came to me and it was more about knowing what I didn’t like or what didn’t relate to me. But each time, I got a little smarter and a little closer. ”
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