When Spencer Rascoff took over as CEO at the struggling dating app giant Match Group in February, one of his first orders of business was to acquaint himself with all the services under his purview. Match, which owns and operates more that 45 dating apps, including Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and Match.com, has seen its stock price drop more than 80% from its 2021 high amid growing fatigue with online dating and a generation shift away from apps. After explosive growth during the pandemic, Match’s annual revenue has been flattening, in large part because growth at Tinder, its once-reliable cash cow, has stalled. Rascoff, the cofounder and former CEO of Zillow Group, is tasked with turning things around.
Rascoff asked the leadership of Tinder and Hinge to each take three hours and present their apps to him. The Tinder team began by walking him through the app’s financial results and business metrics. They then got to the product road map, and finally to the people and culture. The team behind Hinge—which grew revenue by 39% last year, providing a rare bright spot in the Match Group portfolio—took an entirely different approach.
“They started with consumer insights. This is where Gen Z is at. This is where millennials are at. This is the zeitgeist of the world. This is what they want. This is how they date. This is how they think. This is how they connect,” Rascoff recalled in May, as he told the story to the audience at the JPMorgan Global Technology, Media, and Communications Conference. “Only at the very end, did they actually share, briefly, revenue and financial metrics.”
Rascoff’s conclusion: “If you want to understand why Hinge is winning and Tinder was losing, that’s it. That’s why.” A little more than a week later, Tinder CEO Faye Iosotaluno announced that she would step down in July, after less than two years in the role. Rascoff is taking the reins himself. Match shares rose 1.3% following the announcement.
