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TIME: 20 min

Choose at least 2 start-ups to explore per group.

You can split up the task. For example, 2 members read about 1 start-up.

Prepare to share back your findings

Answer the following questions.
1. What do you think was the most interesting tactic that they used to grow?
2. What mindset and skillset do you think contributed to their success?

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Top 5 Ways Uber, Spotify and Dropbox Hacked Their Growth 💻📈

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Top 5 Ways Uber, Spotify and Dropbox Hacked Their Growth 💻📈

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Foundr Magazine - Entrepreneur & Business Magazine

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Top 5 Ways Uber, Spotify and Dropbox Hacked Their Growth 💻📈

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This post first appeared on my blog.

Growthackers.com present some insight into Airbnb's growth hacking experiences that I didn't know before. I nteresting article that can be read here.

Airbnb, like many successful 'out of nowhere' startups began its life by solving a problem that the founders had themselves in 2007 - they wanted to rent out their own San Francisco apartment. They soon found out that they were not just solving their own problem, they were solving a problem that people all over the world had too - a solution that is now worth $10B.

Here are the things that stood out for me with what Airbnb did:

1. Craigslist growth hack -very early on, anyone who listed on Airbnb could cross-list on Craigslist with one click, Airbnb helped by filling out all Craigslists forms with a 'bot.' The hack required some technical gnarl to perform, but it was perfect for this early stage. The team also appeared to look for all listings of vacation properties being listed on Craigslist, and emailed the owners to list also on Airbnb.
Yes, it's spam. But yes, it worked.

2. They looked specifically at ways to improve early experiences - we've all seen those rental listings where the basket of dirty laundry is still on the bed, and the washing up not done. Who wants to stay there? So instead of showing the owners how to take better photos, the team rented great cameras and took great photos for them. Now the team has a photography program where owners can schedule professional photographers to take photos for them.
Yes, it was expensive. But the return on investment was apparent immediately in bookings.

3. Disrupt the market with better everything - Airbnb had to be more than just better than a hotel. They were also substantially cheaper. And they have overcome trust issues by using social connections and by verifying locations. So when disrupting a huge, stale business, every part of the experience had to be addressed.

4. Let's hear it for the heart - Airbnb pushed out a "Wish List" feature that significantly affected engagement - by allowing customers to "wish" to stay in places they've browsed. But it really took off when they changed the icon to add an item to a wish list from a star to a heart - increasing by 30%.
Let's hear it for A/B testing too then!

The article includes a video by a product marketing manager from Airbnb, and this gave more general advice that they learned as they grew, specifically in International growth. Airbnb is challenged in that they have to both market to travelers, and to hosts. Hosts turn out to be the harder ones - people need to feel comfortable renting out their homes. So Airbnb has invested heavily in bringing in more inventory of rental places.

1. Talk to humans. In supply acquisition efforts, Airbnb used, and worked hard to optimize, Facebook ads. But it turns out they weren't that great in terms of performance. And they were expensive. So they talked about how they tried something much more tactile. They decided to 'get out there' and talk to real people. In France, they invested in doing party and information sessions. They got early adopters to invite friends. They took out booths at local events. They ran low cost, local ads. They handed out flyers. They put airbeds out in shopping malls. And for everyone they connected with, they followed up personally. They asked questions. They figured out what was important to that market. And they paid extremely close attention to what they spent on all this.

Turned out, their CPA was 5x better than those Facebook ads. Plus they learned a ton at the same time.

But that isn't scalable, is it? Well, no. But once the market was kick-started, it grew at 2x the rate of the comparison control market. So they advise not to worry about scalability at first. Try and learn first, and maybe scalability is less important.

2. Launch with all you've got. In the beginning, we all see that a great article in a huge blog gives you a spike in traffic. But it's not sustainable. So the team really focused on throwing all they had at the problem. They pursued an integrated approach in Europe, that incorporated lots of in world guerrilla tactics, such as stunts, parties, flyers, and press. They had low budgets, so they worked on co-marketing with others - such as getting liquor companies to sponsor events, getting partners to co-tweets. They made it happen, whatever way they could.

3. Invest in people who can help you. Airbnb found that they didn't have so many sources of traffic that they couldn't spot anomalies. When they saw in Google Analytics that there was traffic coming from one particular source - such as an influential blogger - they reached out directly. Influencers have been very good for them. They invested in giving those influencers what they want, encouraging them to do more.

4. Study your users... you know more than you think about them. Even if you only have an email address and Google Analytics you can 'infer' quite a bit about a user. You can infer from device types, browser types, locations, and even an email address (like a .EDU). When you can't afford a complex program such as KissMetrics, this is a helpful place to start.

5. Use email resources - these really help with email tests - Airbnb mentioned Campaign Monitor (which I like a great deal), Mailchimp, Sendgrid, and Litmus.

6. Don't ditch your data - always be very data driven. Both positive and negative are very valuable. You can learn as much from what doesn't work as from what does. But don't overmeasure. Be very focused on what you want to learn.

The speaker spoke about finding the "North Star" key metric, and sticking to it. Some of the metrics that they favor following are no surprise:

CPA (cost per acquisition) - lets you compare different levers and is the most important metric.

NPS (Net Promoter Score)

Whatever leading indicators is valuable; for them, they find that people who search with specific date ranges convert better than those that don't. So they test with that as a leading indicator.

Plus, all the usual conversion funnel metrics

And finally, surveys. If the data can't tell you something a survey from Olark can. Use them to learn.

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This post first appeared on my blog. Growthackers.

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How Spotify Turned Free Music into a $10+ Billion Valuation

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Spotify is a truly remarkable growth story. In just six years the company is valued at more than $10 billion and has more than 50 million users, 12.5 million of which pay for the service. But how did the company get to where it is today and what is its growth engine?

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Did you know Dropbox has spent very little on advertising, yet it is worth $4 billion? What have they done that's made their business so successful?

They've implemented many growth hacks that we'll discuss in this article. What's a growth hack? Instead of using traditional advertising to "buy" each new customer, it's possible to use growth hacks to acquire customers in ways that scale. In other words, the cost of acquiring each additional customer is much closer to $0. All you have to pay for is the execution of the growth hack, and then it keeps growing your business at little to no extra cost.

For example, one growth hack is to incentivize some of your current users to refer others. This incentive may come in the form of company swag or a free month of your service. Another example would be badges or buttons that websites can embed in their website code. These badges and buttons link back to the website, which makes it serve as an advertisement. We'll explain some Dropbox growth hacks below.

Dropbox has received many awards, including best overall startup for 2011 & Macworld`s 2009 Editor's Choice Award for Software. It's also now known that founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi turned down a 9 digit offer from Steve Jobs.

Here are some stats regarding Dropbox's scale:

Not many SaaS companies can reach that kind of growth in 4 years, with or without advertising. So what has led to the consistent growth that Dropbox has experienced? I'll share some techniques that Dropbox has integrated into their product that has led to the word of mouth growth of this popular cloud storage company.

1. Signup Driven Homepage

First time visitors to the Dropbox website will notice the simple layout, which lays the groundwork for the rest of the Dropbox product. The 2 minute above-the-fold video gives an explanation of the Dropbox product, something that Dropbox has had on their website from the very beginning.

Then:

Now:

The number of options on the homepage are limited. It's clear what Dropbox wants people to do when a visitor comes to the site-signup. It's similar to what many private beta startups will do before they launch to the public:

1. A video on the homepage demoing the product.

2. Gauge the interest in the business by seeing how many request an invite.

It can be tempting to put your latest press release, feature or product on the homepage thinking that this will add more credibility and ultimately improve conversions. While some may help, they can also lead to a cluttered homepage. Anytime you think you need to add more to your homepage, just remember that Dropbox got 70,000 users overnight just by creating a demo video of the product intended for the Digg audience.
Takeaway:
2. Easy Signup Process
Don't tell the user what to think, a wonderful product speaks for itself. It will need no convincing on your part.
The signup process is only a few steps and a user can sign up on their desktop-no web browser needed.

Once a user signs up (either via web or desktop program) and installs Dropbox on their computer, Dropbox puts a photos folder and a 'Getting Started' text file to help get them started.

This helps the new Dropbox user get a little acclimated to the product and some of its functions.

Back when it was popular, MySpace added Tom as a friend for you as soon as you signed up. Facebook encourages people to find their friends via email. Mint sends weekly financial summaries. Amazon sends daily emails related to your recent searches. Some eCommerce websites email you with a 10% off coupon if you haven't ordered from them in a while.

3. Refer a Friend
Takeaway:
According to Houston, referrals increased Dropbox signups by 60%. Dropbox makes it really easy for users to tell one another about the product; even giving them incentives. For example, when one person who has Dropbox refers another, they both get a 500MB increase, pending signup.

Dropbox makes it easy to refer:
How do you help users on their initial first steps with your product? What do you do to help them keep coming back?
Via email:

Link:

Friend referrals instill more trust than an advertisement ever could. Furthermore , the sender has an incentive to spread the word about Dropbox-getting extra space. The referee also has an incentive for signing up-more space than if they just signed up through the normal process. This total costs Dropbox 1GB of space - far less than a Google AdWords buy.

Before you put $5k into Google or Facebook ads, first see if there's a way you can build in a refer-a-friend program. People will quickly jump on once they discover that there's an incentive. With SaaS and E-commerce companies, you can also track the effectiveness of your program using it as an experiment. If you don't know where to start with referral programs or are looking for a word-of-mouth program to help you, check out Curebit.

4. Social Media

We've all seen the stores with a "Like us on Facebook" or the "Follow us on Twitter" decals on front doors. It's becoming all too common-something that people mindlessly see. Some companies offer an incentive to Like them, such as announcing specials for Facebook fans only.

Dropbox did something a little different. With each Follow on Twitter, Connect with Facebook or Twitter, Dropbox gives the user a 125MB increase:
Takeaway:
At the time of this writing, Dropbox had a little over 720,000 Twitter followers. While not all of them can be attributed to this hack, it certainly hasn't hurt their quest to increase followers.

Dropbox incentivizes users to connect with them on Facebook and Twitter - giving the user yet another platform to spread the Dropbox product.

It's no longer enough to have a Twitter or Facebook account and put a decal on your store front window. If you run an E-commerce site, consider having something such as fans of your Facebook page receive 10% off every order.

The trick here is a user could Like you when they place an order, then unlike you once they complete to order and receive the discount. The way around this is to build an API to make sure it only works for fans who have Liked you consistently and not intermittently.

5. Sharing with Simplicity

Dropbox makes it simple for people to share files. Both the sender and the receiver have little work to do. To share a gallery with people, all a user has to do is copy a link:
Takeaway:
This is very similar to Facebook's ease of photo sharing:

By sending people the photos that are hosted on the Dropbox website, Dropbox is getting more exposure (for free) to potential users. When unregistered people view the gallery, they see this short message at the bottom:

Users also have the ability to copy the link from their desktop:

"Zach Bulygo made this gallery by simply dropping files into a folder.
Get your own public gallery with Dropbox."

Even in this promo, Dropbox is telling of their primary benefit - simplicity.

When a user wants to share a folder with a friend on Dropbox, anyone unregistered will have to register for Dropbox. This creates a strong viral coefficient for Dropbox.

Remember when everyone used to download files using Megaupload, Rapidshare, Hotfile, and many other file hosting sites? These services were often plump full of ads, "premium accounts" with faster download speeds and no wait time for downloads, and many other money making tactics that took away from the core objective for the user: getting a file downloaded without having to jump through a million hoops!

Dropbox solved that problem.

If a user wants to share a file, they simply use the 'Get Link' function found on either the desktop or web. Users who want to download the file will see an image similar to this:

No ads, no signup required first, no waiting for the download link. Just a clean looking page with a focus on one thing: the file.

Compare this with a Megaupload download page:
Sharing folders:
There's a focus on ads & getting the visitor off the page to pay Megaupload. If they don't want to, they have to wait at least 35 seconds for the free download.
Sharing links to files:
If this can teach us anything, it's that addressing pain points in competitors' products are key when making your own product. Capitalize on their weaknesses and pain points.

Not all companies have sharing functionality. If you're one who does, it's important to make it really easy for your users. Take inspiration from Facebook or Dropbox. Simplicity is at the core of what top technology companies do. When users share with other non-users, it gives Dropbox a chance to show off their speed, simplicity of design & usefulness. What does your product show off when users refer others?

6. Dropquest

Dropquest is a contest run by Dropbox that makes users go through different puzzles and scavenger hunts. Those who complete and place in the top 176 get free space and/or free swag. The announcement on their blog generated quite a lot of Likes and Tweets.

Dropquest has gotten Dropbox lots of publicity in the tech world for this (just Google dropquest).

Contests can be a great way for companies to generate buzz about their brand and get users enthused about the product. If you haven't already, you may want to try holding a fun contest with your users where they get more of your product in return. You just may end up generating some PR for your product.

7. Availability on Multiple Devices & Platforms

The nature of the Dropbox product makes it important for them to be on multiple platforms. People need to access their products from anywhere at any time. Being available everywhere is key for Dropbox, according to Co-Founder & CEO Drew Houston.

There are an estimated 20 million Ubuntu (Linux) users worldwide. Dropbox released their Linux program as soon as they launched to the public. These millions of Linux users did not have a free cloud storage solution at the time. By adding Linux support and continuing to this day to be on as many platforms as possible, Dropbox is making it easy for anyone who wants a Dropbox account to have one.

There are an estimated 2.0% of Dropbox users who use Linux exclusively. Going by the 50 million user base number, there are a million Linux Dropbox users. These are a million people who can spread the product by sharing galleries, referring friends, adding them on social media, and all the other growth hacks Dropbox has done.

Beyond Linux, Dropbox has maintained Blackberry support despite their shrinking market share. It's also supported on even the least popular devices such as the Symbian.

Support on multiple platforms is not just important for the Dropbox product; it can also be considered an opportunity for growth. One Symbian user can spread the Dropbox product to one Mac user who may spread it to 100 people.
Takeaway:
Dropbox understands their users and the needs they have. They also have a leg up on many of their competitors who don't support every platform. What are you doing as a business owner to achieve a distinguishable competitive advantage?

CEO Houston has big plans for Dropbox. They've gotten to where they are not by advertising, but by going to where their users are (Digg in the early days), keeping things simple, and implementing a few growth hacks. Startups are hard, but implementing a few of these growth hacks into your own company may make things a little easier on you.

Have you tried any of these? What else do you think has led to Dropbox's growth?

Look for more growth hack posts from us in the near future.
Takeaway:
About the Author: Zach Bulygo is a content writer, you can follow him on Twitter @zachcb1.
Takeaway:

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The 7 Ways Dropbox Hacked Growth to Become a $4 Billion Company

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Did you know Dropbox has spent very little on advertising, yet it is worth $4 billion? What have they done that's made their business so successful? They've implemented many growth hacks that we'll discuss in this article. What's a growth hack?

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Tinder is among world's most popular dating sites that help users meet new people, boasting of 20 billion matches up to date.

Tinder was founded on 1st of September, 2012 and later launched in October by IAC, the innovation sandbox of Hatch Labs. IAC is Tinder's parent company that has the largest share of the Tinder organization.

Ever since its launch, the Tinder app has phenomenally done well. By the beginning of 2014, the application boasted of more than approximately 10 million users. Towards the end of that year, there were more than 40 million downloads and 1 billion swipes in a day.

During the company's earnings call, reports showed that Tinder had 100% annual growth in terms of monthly active users. However, just like so many other things on Tinder, its valuation is among the things that are partly a myth and partly true.

Amid the year 2014, most sources stated that IAC offered to purchase an additional 10 percent of Tinder with $500m. Later on, in just a short time, the story had picked up but Sean Rad, Tinder's very own CEO cited the reports as "meaningfully wrong". At the time, the company was being valued at $550 million by Re/Code as shown on Forbes.

Later on, in 2014, stories were going around about an extra $1 billion investment at the company. However, in December the same year, Barry Diller, AIC Chairman/Senior Executive confirmed that the reports about the valuation were irrelevant as the Tinder 'is not a venture-backed startup'.

Tinder, with its swiping paradigm, has made a big impact as a mobile user app that provides the user with a thrilling experience. At the same time, the app has managed a breakout success in what we could seemingly call a competitive dating space albeit there being cases of sordid management scandals at the organization.

Within this growth case study, we have solely focused on growth hacks that led to the success of the company. We will not have to dive deep into the sexual harassment cases and management scandals, that eventually forced Justin Mateen the co-founder and their CMO to resign not forgetting Whitney Wolfe, an early employee who left for other jobs with seemingly deeper investigative and journalistic chops. However, here is the full story if you want to read more of it.

With that aside, we quickly take a look at how Tinder pulled a startup breakout and absolutely reinvented online dating in a world full of not only popular but also heavily funded services like Plenty of Fish, Match.com, eHarmony among others using just your phone.

In this case study, we will focus on:

1. Initial Traction

Creation of very addictive application through a gamified user involvement and novel that exploited new social customs for dating

Built a strong market in terms of demand and supply via collegiate systems

Driven impact of the network by college-to-college take-offs

2. App Growth and Development

Press & Word of mouth, which keeps on driving the growth

External extensions that make the app more accessible to users who are not in the range of single and want to connect

The app features that upsurge retention and re-engagement

3. International Expansion

4. Monetization

5. Company's Summary of Financial Overwiew

6. Tinder as a Channel

7. The Tinder Effect in Summary

Let us get to know more about Tinder and the way it works. Tinder is an online dating app that designed for mobile that helps matching potential partners via an interaction design and a well-crafted novel interface.

Tinder users through suggestions made by their friend's or people from the surrounding locale are presented with seemingly potential dates.

Users, after viewing the profile will swipe left or right, dismissing the prospective partner or suggesting an interest in getting to know more of the person, respectively.

If the other user, in this case, the owner of the profile, also swipes right, which happens when they are both using the app, then they are 'tinderly' matched. From then they can decide to start a conversation and eventually organize a date.

When a user clicks-open the app (Tinder app), information from shared friends (through Facebook) networks, along with their last location, plus their interests, provide prospective matches.

This means, the more the user interacts with the application, the more the chances of getting a better potential match become.

Photo Credits: Tinder

Unlike many other companies, Tinder is not an old-fashioned online dating startup. In fact, it is sponsored by IAC, the company that also owns Match.com, a mega online dating company.

Tinder evolved from 'innovation sandbox' by Hatch Labs that had been launched in March 2011 but closed down in 2013 around February.

In fact, many people tend to think that Tinder is a startup platform and that kind of confusion has seemingly worked to the company's advantage.

Back in 2013, CEO of IAC, OkCupid, and Match.com, Sam Yagan claimed:

"We keep it sort of on the DL because it's much sexier for it to be a totally fresh startup that has nothing to do with the market leader. But we're constantly trying to build new startup-y stuff at Match, and this is a product that we started working on late last year with the team in L.A., and it popped."

Since the launch, Tinder has not raised any funds out of AIC. In fact, according to TechCrunch, Sam Yagan said, "IAC has been, is and will always be the majority owner of Tinder."

The status of Tinder as a company has left most people questioning why it looks like it hangs in a kind of mystery. Mythology has conflicted with facts regarding the story of how the owners founded the application.

However, most sources have agreed that those who founded Tinder were initially working at Hatch Labs and had been working on a customer loyalty app by the name Cardify.

It is at that time that Joe Munoz, a professional coder, came up with an earlier version of a dating site(Tinder) when on his weekend codeathon.

Gradually, the team decided to shift their focus fully to the online dating app, which they used to call it Matchbox, and it dawned on them that the name sounded similar to Match.com owned by IAC. Disparity as to who had originally found the name of the app, 'Tinder' kicked in.

Whitney Wolfe, the co-founder, and former marketing manager claimed that she provided the name 'Tinder' as a small twist on 'Tender,' what looked like a too-romantic suggestion by Rad. TechCrunch however, claims that their anonymous sources were not sure but went ahead and listed Munoz, Wolfe, and Badeen as possibilities.

Having said all that, a number of details concerning Tinder tend to be fuzzy but for the numbers, they are very straightforward. As aforementioned, there has been over 40 million downloads and more than 1 billion profile swipes every day and that leaves us with the question of, what has Tinder done to grow so fast within a short period?

1. Creating Supply & Word Of Mouth

Photo Credits: Medium

Market balance is one of the main keys to success in any marketplace. Market balance in simple terms is the availability and readiness of sellers and buyers to take part in business transactions without outnumbering each other.

In any monetary marketplace, there should always be enough demand for sellers and enough supply for buyers. Without any of them, then there is no marketplace.

Some people refer to this as the chicken and egg problem in trying to answer the question - how do you get one without the other?

The easiest way someone can start up a market is by developing the supply sector before anything else. It is easier to build up the seller side of the market.

You can hack it by either offering other incentives to target participation or you can pay up for the supply. This is according articles and talks from Gagan Biyani, Sprig founder and Sangeet Choudary of Platformed.info

In the Tinder world, true buyers or sellers may not exist, but in a most similar dating environment, the supply of women on the channel is what initiates men to participate.

This principle has been used in many other areas like 'Ladies Night' promotions that happen at your local bars.

It goes without saying that once you seed your market with enough supply buyers will always avail themselves to participate. Of course, this can also work in reverse but stereotypically, it is done in that fashion.

Tinder realized that kind of strategy and they supply-hacked the platform with many women in the early stage by focusing on sorority ladies as their initial adopters.

It became fun, and more women joined the channel and that in turn triggered a response in men who were eager to download the app and have a look at those girls who were available and close enough (in terms of distance) for potential dates. That move was quite excellent, to say the least.

Most millennials are mobile first and digitally savvy, sororities can offer broad ecosystems and through the word of mouth, the app stretched out to more people making the connection between friends across the whole system more contagious.

The combination of word of mouth and supply seeding was like a spark of fire on gasoline. According to Nick Summers of Businessweek, Munoz said:

"We sent [Wolfe] all over the country. ... Her pitch was pretty genius. She would go to the chapters of her sorority, do her presentation, and have all the girls at the meetings install the app. Then she'd go to the corresponding brother fraternity-they'd open the app and see all these cute girls they knew."

Source: Bloomberg

Tinder grew from as little as 5,000 up to around 15,000 users by the time Wolfe came back from her trip, Munoz said. "I thought the avalanche had started." He added that with the word of mouth through the collegiate networks plus the earlier on supply-side seeding, the strategy was too important to be understated.

Photo Credits: Medium

It helped the application stretch out to a critical mass of people that were indispensable for the network impact to take hold. Even up to today, word of mouth still is an important factor of growth of Tinder.

The platform started garnering fame that even James Parks, the Reality TV producer as well as aspiring comic, met his girlfriend using the application.

During his interview, he claimed that most of her friends were using Tinder and it was not long before she jumped onto the bandwagon and became overly addicted.

Tinder became like a daily activity she would not do without as occasionally, she would leave the bar, go home, eat, lie in bed and then Tinder.

Psychology, business professor, & Vice President of innovation and research, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic of University College London asserted, "whereas it is still somewhat embarrassing to confess to using EHarmony or Match.com, Tinderers are proud to demo the app at a dinner party"

Contrary to most old-fashioned channels of dating (all online), you can use Tinder in presence of friends as the channel is socially acceptable and you can talk about it and even show off.

For instance, users of EHarmony do it in private but users on Tinder are more likely than not share their activities with their friends.

2. The Network Effect

The number of users as usual is very crucial to the success on all social media platforms. Especially for Tinder, it is possibly even more significant as it is an app developed based on your locality and would not work to capacity with an insufficient amount of possible matches.

In a location of 100 or less of Tinder users, the swiping fun would be so short-lived that the potential matches would be exhausted in one or two sessions.

That said, it is good to note that no matter how engaging or fun the user experience any social media platform is, it is not as useful if it lacks sufficient audience.

In this case, for a dating site like Tinder, lacking potential matches can be of a very big blow. It is at this stage that the collegiate method played a huge focal dual-role in the growth of Tinder.

The collegiate system was not only a rich group of target users that provided the effective supply seeding from but also had an available thick network that increased the amount of users on the channel quickly in a region.

Once a number of the targeted sororities began to use the application, a word of mouth amid the sorority and house network of the same college or campus would then take over and in turn increase the availability and accessibility of prospective matches among the users existing in any given region.

Tinder used the same strategy as Uber, Belly, and Facebook to create market balance but instead of setting their channel based on geographical areas like in the case of Uber, they used a collegiate system to drive network density as well as the fuel supply.

As soon as Tinder gained enough user-bases through the word of mouth, the app's adoption started to gradually magnify because of the network impact. More users joined the dating platform, and that meant the channel became more popular and in turn, it grew famous.

We have discussed much on how crucial role of the word of mouth was to Tinder's growth, well how about what exactly sparked Tinder's growth surge?

Well, apart from being just a mere mobile phone and location-based application, Tinder continued with innovations and it leveraged number of fundamental facts about the user's psychology and experience that made the application more captivating and addictive and at the same time worth talking about.

We all know that a mere mobile application cannot spark much of excitement but Tinder was built in a way that it could have easily caught the eye of anyone who was looking to date.

It is at this stage therefore that we will have to look at some of the mainstream innovations and differences that make the app more addictive, memorable and worth sharing.

1. The User Experience

Photo Credits: Giphy

Tinder stands out among other mobile applications in terms of is how you are able to browse through possible matches with ease. The matches are portrayed on the surface of the interface like a virtual deck of cards, which users swipe through. The user experience pattern has crucial implications for the behavior of the user.

First, the simple act of reviewing, matches by swiping left or right with the aim of dismissing a match or confirming a potential match is quite intuitive and feels so satisfying.

Furthermore, using one hand as you swipe through a number of potential matches lets you go through a number of them in a short time.

Secondly, by showing the information of the match on a virtual card, the app is able to screen real profiles available for more information and bigger pictures.

The kind of visual real estate is not as feasible on a small screen or list format but provides multiple options as you navigate.

2. Gamification Of Dating and Variable Rewards

The variable rewards component is perhaps very important. Since you are not able to see who is next on the match list before you swipe, the desire to swipe in succession becomes powerful.

Most Tinder users tend to ask themselves questions like 'what if the next card I swipe is my ideal match?'

These kinds of variable rewards are seemingly influential psychological concepts that are mostly used in jackpots/lotteries and gambling and it magically works a bid deal on Tinder just as well.

People would just keep on swiping to try to find out if they could eventually hit that 'match jackpot' in case they swiped the next card. In fact, putting in mind that if you have a Tinder account and you log into your account you will be presented with people who have already swiped right for you.

This highlights the point of potential reward even higher as it gives you chance to swipe on people who are already interested in you. You may not know those who interested exactly, but high chances are, that the person you are swiping through at that time thinks that you are interesting and eye-catching.

Tomas Chamoro-Premuzic goes on and urges through an article about Tinder on the Guardian, and said: "Tinder is just the latest example for the sexualization of urban gadgets: it is nomophobia, Facebook-porn and Candy Crush Saga all in one." Tomas went ahead and claimed that the hook-up is only but an excuse for most users and that the art of Tindering equally substantial to the possible date itself. The aforementioned Jamie Park's experience agrees with that notion.

People used HotorNOt.com( before it pivoted toward a dating service) for quite a long time to end up rating others without having the payoff of the probable potentials.

Issie Lapowsky of Wired explains gamified and Social Tinder nature and affirms "It's not uncool to scroll through Tinder with friends, and your non-single friends are all dying to "play" for you. It may be the first dating technology that people in relationships actually wish they needed."

Mulshine Molly of BetaBeat also described an adventure of a woman by the name Bethany a workmate and Tinder user who downloaded the app due to curiosity when she heard from a friend.

To Bethany, Tinder was just an additional social humdrum activity "After dutifully checking Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, she'd start swiping. Soon, she was even Tindering at work" Mulshine explains of her friend.

According to Mulshine, Bethany claimed to have fallen in love with the ego boost that came along when she would be matched with a good-looking potential man and have him text her. "When I was on it, I felt a little voyeuristic, a little excited and different. You test the boundaries of what you can and cannot say. I didn't feel like myself." Bethany explained during a conversation with Mulshine

With that said, Tinder must have actually crafted a system that is quite powerful. Putting in mind that most online dating platforms promise users to find them true love and in most cases, they end up with an eventual exit from the site, Tinder's is designed in a way that you will see who is around your locality and could be interested in you.

Even when the user gets a satisfying match or successive dates, the app adventure is gamified in a way that it creates a powerful desire to go back to the platform and check what else is out there that you could be missing out. The variable rewards plus fear of missing out makes Tinder extremely addictive.

3. The Psychology of Tinder: Love at First Sight

Photo Credits: Annecohenwrites

Bethany's case is common for most Tinder users. As Chamorro-Premuzic says, the platform enables users to accomplish basic social and evolutionary desires.

"Just like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, Tinder enables people to get along, albeit in a somewhat infantile, sexual, and superficial way. It also enables us to get ahead, nourishing our competitive instincts by testing and maximizing our dating potential. And lastly, Tinder enables users to satisfy their intellectual curiosity: finding out not only about other people's interests and personality, but what they think of ours."

Source: The Guardian

Nonetheless, Tomas went ahead and argued that Tinder partly emulates the real world dating, where people make quick judgments basing on visual perception and appearance.

In a lot of ways, Tinder tends to have advantages over other mainstream online dating websites and platforms because it seems a bit more realistic.

The experience is like that of instances when you make an eye contact with somebody from across the street or restaurant and contemplating on whether or not talk to them.

In the real world, it is hard to find out your prospective date's favorite restaurant or book until they have met but Tinder has made that quite easier. As Rad, Tinder's CEO explained to Fast:

"We want to create experiences that emulate human behavior. What we do on Tinder is no different than what we already do," Rad added that, "You see somebody. You start with their face. If you find a connection, you continue to understand, 'what are our common interests, our social groups?' You're trying to create validation. From there, you open a dialog. Where that goes is up to a person."

Source: First Company

Even Rutger University's very own anthropologist Helen Fisher agreed and explained it. "There's a reason they call it 'love at first sight,' not love at first conversation, first smell or first joke." Fisher went ahead and pointed out that in a number of ways, the channel might be a more effective platform to look for a potential match, than having to go physically in a restaurant.

"In New York, when you walk into a bar, there's no response. The other people there do not know you've walked in. You don't know whether they're looking for a date. They might all be there with wives who happen to be in the other room."

Once the prospective matches are displayed on the platform, it is generally very safe for the users to make expectations and assumptions, by contrast. This is because the individual is single very open to the hook-up idea and wants to mingle with new people.

4. Double Opt-In: Softening the Blow of Rejection

The application has a double opt-in feature that has significantly lowered the fear of rejection. Lapowsky explains that,

"Sites like OkCupid and Match.com have never been able to hack the rejection problem. They haven't simplified the process much, either, still prompting users to fill out those long and antiquated dating surveys. The process is a drag. Rejection is disappointing. And the fact that you're doing it anyway only plays into the lonely stereotype that the online dating industry has had such a tough time shrugging off."

Source: Wired

There have been abounding scary stories on the old-fashioned online dating websites which branch from the fact the number of men is more than the number of women on the channels and most times ladies are more occasionally overwhelmed with obvious pickup lines from some men that they could have not considered or never imagined to hanging out with.

Apart from that, there is that nerve that as a human you will require when approaching someone that you had never talked to before. Tinder has eliminated with all that.

There are still plenty of awful solicitations and pick-up lines and sometimes the risks of being rejected though but Tinder has lowered that tremendously because users are aware that their matches had initially swiped right for their profiles.

Tinder does not have challenges similar to OKCupid where the women's inboxes will be filled with so many unwanted solicitations and pick-up lines.

The fact that Tinder removed such kind of slogs makes the platform so enjoyable plus the users are able to unmatch any matches they do not want to give them control to talk to whoever they want.

5. Maximum Potential Matches with Minimal Effort

Many people nowadays are time-deprived and that explains clearly, why lots of people see any reliable dating channel that gets them exposed to many prospective matches in a little period as an improvement. Most people do not have the time to go out there and mingle. Nick, a Tinder user claims:

"You wouldn't believe how many interesting women are on there. Wildly successful, totally beautiful women just waiting for somebody to ask them out. I've been out with Brazilian event planners who are into capoeira, writers, comedians who deal drugs-any combination of people."

Source: BetaBeat

Actually, he perceived the channel as the ultimate dating platform he had ever seen online and describes the on-boarding and signup onto the platform as smooth and 'painless'.

Tinder has gone ahead and integrated their system with Facebook, and that means photos of users who join using Facebook are readily available and the identity is verified.

Additionally, rather than having to fill a questionnaire that has long multiple pages, users can sign up with a simple tagline.

Once they log into the site, they can start browsing through matches that could seem potential instantly and the user experience, which is a simple swipe left if no or swipe right if yes, makes the adventure even more thrilling.

New users, in a matter of minutes, are able to quickly download the app from appstore and start swiping a few minutes later. The reason is, you do not need to create and or edit profiles and this means there is less work to do for new years who want to join the platform.

During the 'tindering' experience, there are more opportunities that you can use to extract value from the service and that is done by holding conversations between the matches.

The ease of creating a Tinder account has its cons and challenges though, which we will look at it later.

6. Externalize the App with New Extensions

There has been an evolution in terms of features ever since its launch back in 2012. The features were developed and added with an aim of improving the app's user-ability while at the same time trying to achieve monetization.

The features have been outlined below in somehow an order in the year which they were launched.

a. Matchmaker

As of the year 2013 around June, Tinder launched an exciting feature called Matchmaker that was designed with the aim of allowing users to introduce friends regardless of being for romantic/dating or other reasons. As soon as they were introduced, the friends would afterward chat using Tinder.

This feature, which looked simple opened a door for fresh opportunities in the name of growth of Tinder. Before Tinder, users could look for matches by themselves. This kind of restriction had limited the number of users who were presumingly 'single and searching' for possible matches to date

However, after MatchMaker was launched Tinder increased the accessibility of the platform to not only single and searching but also those who were dating, committed to a relationship, and even married.

Through Matchmaker the company had created a new feature that gave a chance to those who had not justified the app's use previously.

b. Lists

In November 2013, Tinder launched Lists. Alexa Tsotsis, editor at TechCrunch describes the list like "the first product iteration towards a 'for all' use case."

The feature lets people using Tinder to sort matches into categories using criteria they like for example. ''Paris friends' to mean matches located in Paris or "people who like novels' for people who would like in this context, reading novels.

The app update also included support for up to 24 languages. That exemplified the application's move toward a larger use and as Rad asserted recently, the team is on course to create a feature that will automatically create a dynamic list using Tinder's relevant algorithm interests, location, and user preferences.

c. Moments

Launched in June of 2014, the app allows users on Tinder to share enhanced and edited photographs with their matches. The feature also used by Instagram and Snapchat not only changed the way people used Tinder but also acted a new system structure for repeated interactions and at the same time retaining Tinder users.

Moments gave the users a chance to intermingle with prospective matches in a newly designed way and at the same time e-engaging old matches who may have forgotten about their mingling experience and eventually reigniting old moments through conversations.

Rad asserts us through TechCruch that "It's about sharing these moments, and just because you match, doesn't mean you need to date that person; you could match with a friend who you want to share a moment with."

All the user needs to do is simply use Tinder to take a photo that was to be displayed for view in the subsequent 24 hours or so. With that, matches can then like by swiping right or nope by swiping left on the moments.

Alongside moments, users can still turn off the discover mode and that allows them to mingle with available matches and opt out if they do not want to be discovered and or paired with other matches who just joined the channel. Additionally, Rad also promised that there will be a new feature released soon that could "solidify that Tinder is not just about dating."

By 11th of November 2015, moments retired and just a month before there was the birth of Super Like.

d. Super Like

Photo Credits: Business Insider

The Super like feature was launched globally in 2015 October. The feature allows users who do not have Tinder plus to 'super-like' only one profile within 24 hours for free. Users who have Tinder Plus have 5 Super Likes on a daily basis. For Super Likes, users swipe up instead of right.

The application will then notify the user that they had been Superliked by showing a blue border that surrounds the profile of the users who Super Liked their profiles.

The user will now decide if to swipe left or right on the profiles that 'super liked' them. This feature has increased the chances of getting a potential match by 3 times.

e. Vina

Photo Credits: Baazar

In 2016 September, Tinder decided to invest in Vina. Vina is a network where women can meet and begin new friendships.

f. Tinder Boost

Photo Credits: TechCruch

Having been tested in 2016 September in Australia, the feature was launched globally in 2016 of October. The feature allows the user to have a complete and top profile in a short time, as little as 30 minutes.

Tinder Boost users receive up to 10 times the number of views on their profiles when they boost. Users of Tinder Plus only get a single free Boost monthly. The feature has a similarity with the premium version of OKCupid

g. Tinder Online

Photo Credits: TechCrunch

In 2017 March, Tinder then came up with Tinder Online. The feature is a web-optimized service of Tinder app that lets people access the channel from the desktops and laptops. Before, it was only available in Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Sweden, Indonesia, Mexico, and Italy.

The feature though did not include the Tinder special features like Tinder Boost or Super likes. Later on, in 2017 September, Tinder online was launched worldwide.

h. Tinder Gold

Photo Credits: Engadget

Tinder gold is a feature that was introduced in August 2017 all over the world. It is a premium subscription though and allows users to see the matches who have already liked them before swiping.

Aside from that, with this feature you can get one boost monthly, unlimited likes, a passport, more profile controls and 5 daily Super Likes

i. Instagram Integration

Photo Credits: TechCruch

Tinder users get access to the Instagram profiles of the matches and they are able to view their Instagram feeds before they can decide to swipe left or right for them.

If you link your Tinder account to Instagram it will display up to 34 images you recently uploaded on Instagram.

After Tinder did well in the US, the platform was finally launched on android, which represented a push to grow it internationally. According to Mateen, he says

"We have been experiencing an unbelievable growth trajectory in the U.S., and have managed to reach a significant chunk of iPhone users within our target market. As we shift our focus to international growth, it only makes sense to launch Tinder for Android, which owns nearly 70% of the smartphone market overseas."

Source: Gigaom

As by the year 2013 around November, main global marketplaces for Tinder were in the UK and Brazil. The two markets grew at an average rate of 2%, each having more than 1 million users for the preceding couple of months.

Tinder CEO, Rad claimed that once the organization realized a constant natural adoption of the app in any new target market, they would go on and expand the progress by the aid of 'borderline celebs' who we all know have a broad impact in terms of network.

The company would then essentially stretch out and power user's social networks and eventually getting them on board while promoting their presence on the app.

A number of athletes like Olympic and minor celebs like Miss America have been seen using the application in the press and that has really driven a buzz in the name of further growth in users

That marketing strategy was implemented in the USA and already working toward a good direction and the Tinder team managed to replicate the same in universal markets successfully.

For instance, Tinder was tested with ads on Facebook and they realized that growth stopped at 25,000 users or so, in Turkey. Matten told Forbes, "The quality of users was completely different. The growth there was horrendous compared to anywhere else."

However, later when they deployed the 'borderline celeb' marketing strategy, there was a notable rise in growth in Turkey as well.

In 2015 February, Tinder was ranked among the best 100 general applications in more than 20 countries for Android and more than 44 countries for iOS according to App Annie.

Moreover, when ranking android application in the category of lifestyle, Tinder was ranked in the top 5 in a group of less than 35 countries, top 10 for a group of 41 countries and top 100 for 62 countries.

For the iOS, in the category of lifestyle applications, the app ranked top 5 for more than 50 countries, top 10 for more than 80 countries and top 100 for more than 130 countries.

Tinder was ranked 1st in the UK, Belgium, united states, Hungary, Philippines, France the US and Chile in the Android Lifestyle app. For iOS lifestyle app, tinder ranked first in Latvia, Finland Malta, Brazil, Sweden Iceland, Lithuania, Estonia, and. Belgium

In 2018, Tinder has ranked as best dating app from a list compiled by DigitalTrends beating other popular dating sites like OkCupid, Bumble, and Coffee Meets Bagel.

Moreover, as of 6 th of August 2018, Match Group announced that the channel had more than 3.5 million paid subscriptions. That was an increase of 81% since the previous year 2017.

In 2013, Rad in an interview with Tsostis, Rad said, "We would never add a paywall to the core value, we want that to always remain free." Actually, all the co-founders had asserted that it was very clear "confident monetization won't come in the form of ads."

The company has considered a number of potential monetization methods, however. There have been in-built app purchases that include charging users just in case they needed to back-swipe, if they had by mistake swiped left.

That feature was launched on the 2nd of March 2015. Nonetheless, Advancers.org Charlie Dewitte shared an ad that showed Tinder had been matched with actors from Mindy Project in January 2014.

Photo Credits: Advancers

On contrary to what Rad had claimed that Tinder would continuously remain free, the company announced a launch of TinderPlus in 2015 March 2nd.

Tinder plus was a plan to be paid for that has ranging price tags basing on the location your age, and possibly your gender. Many Tinder users are charged $9.99 monthly but for those aged 30 years and over they charged $19.99 in a month.

Just like every other thing on tinder, there is murkiness in how they have placed their price models.

According to Quartz, the company claimed, "Lots of products offer differentiated price tiers by age like Spotify does for students, for example. Tinder is no different; during our testing we've learned, not surprisingly, that younger users are just as excited about TinderPlus, but are more budget constrained, and need a lower price to pull the trigger."

Source: Quartz

The service, however, was set to be that direct, and any user would have the product though. The paid service enables the user to:

Revert on the former match you might have swiped left on accidentally. This feature is the one that most users demanded to be updated

Own a passport that allows the user search for matches anywhere instead of having to stick in their locality or geographical location

Have an advert free app, which meant that there are more native ads in the free service of the app that such as the Mindy Project

Photo Credits: TechCrunch

By April in the year 2015, users on Tinder had swiped 1.6 billion profiles and made over 26 million matches daily. As we talk, over 8 billion matches have been made since the launch of Tinder in 2012.

In 2014 march, IAC increased their stake in Tinder as by Reuters reports.. The move caused a stir and speculations that Tinder's value was at multi-billion dollars. The bank of America valued Tinder at around $1.35 billion basing on the user base, which was then 50 million. That was back in July 2015 as by reports from BusinessInsider

Since then the platform's monetization has come through additional in-app purchases that are meant for more functions. As we talk, the channel boasts of over 3.5 million paid subscriptions.

There are several financial statements posted by Match Group all over the internet and it easy to access them.

It is not a surprise that many companies have taken advantage of the growth and hype of Tinder. Some companies shamefully tend to grow their own platforms by creating fake profiles and Tinder bots.

Pseudo Tinder Accounts

In 2013 around July, Symantec, a security company reported an adult spam webcam on the Tinder channel. Once the users were matched with that fake account, they would then be asked to join a session on webcam through an exterior site.

While on the website, they (the users) would then be inquired with a prompt to input their credit card number in the name of verifying their age.

Photo Credits: Symantec

Just after the Symantec's report, Tinder made extra efforts to curb the spammers by including a feature that reported suspicious malicious accounts. Nonetheless, there have been reports of scam users on Tinder bots up to date.

In 2014, April, Sarah Perez of TechCrunch reported spambots that used the same kind of external links and pre-scripted chats that aimed at luring Tinder users to get mobile applications like CastleClash from the Appstore.

Photo Credits: Symantec

As if that is not all, the newest recurring spambots on Tinder are pseudo prostitution accounts that contain provocative images plus overlaid texts that incorporates terms used in online prostitution ads and contain URLs in which users could supposedly connect with.

Photo Credits: Symantec

Suppose a user clicks on the URLs on the malicious profile, they are re-directed to explicit personal sites that have been designed for hookups and dating.

By use of URLs, prostitution terms and prices in an overlay of text instead of the designated bio section, the spam accounts ensures that the bots make Tinder not to find out that they are fake.

Whether app, webcam, or private site, the spambots are just but a part of affiliate fraudster programs that receive returns from the ability to convert unsuspicious users on all social networks into prospective leads.

"While we do not have insight into the conversion of leads and premium memberships, we do have some statistics about click rates for some campaigns. For instance, from the end of January 2014 until mid-April 2014, a campaign associated with a site called blamcams resulted in nearly half a million clicks across seven URLs. Depending on the offers given by the affiliate program and the number of successful conversions of leads, this particular spammer likely earned quite a bit of money."

Source: Symantec

1. Hooking up on the platform is more arousing compared to actual hookups - Tinder does not only gamify the whole dating process but in other words, sexualizes it. It goes beyond getting a date with someone.

2. Provision of digital eligibility that surpasses physical one - Most data used for profiles of Tinder users are imported from Facebook. The data from Facebook is sophisticated and calculated and makes Tinder attract more people.

3. Social needs and evolution - Tinder has granted people a platform to keep in touch and the social needs of people are what drives the channel. People can now know what others think of them and there is competition between them.

There has been barely any information about the algorithm Tinder uses to match people yet few sources have disclosed that they have a system related to the Elo rating system.

4. Tinder emulates the real-world dating - Tinder as a system is all about the user making quick choices basing on what they see on the virtual cards to be swiped.

This is the same case in real life as because tend to do the same when they meet potential dates for the first time.

5. Romanticism barely exists in real life, except in retail - Tinder tends to match soulmates rationally and efficiently and ensures a quick new relationship for them but does not guarantee that the relationship will be long-term.

Photo Credits: Twitter

In 2018, a tweet by Jeff Morris, Director of the Product the application will try new location-tracking options that functions like Happn. Perhaps from the inspiration of Bumble, another dating app Tinder is also on the course to create a 'message first' feature that allows women to initiate start conversation. Both the updates will be opt-in.

Additionally, there are efforts to expand Tinder to a more of social network for the young generation who are single instead of having to focus solely on matching people and creating relationships. There are also plans to create a better connection between people who have the same life goals.

All said, it means that Tinder is not stopping at where it is right now. The Tinder team is still working hard to make sure there the company continues to grow.

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Tinder Case Study - Strategies Behind Tinder's Explosive Growth

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Tinder is among world's most popular dating sites that help users meet new people, boasting of 20 billion matches up to date. Tinder was founded on 1st of September, 2012 and later launched in October by IAC, the innovation sandbox of Hatch Labs. IAC is Tinder's parent company that has the largest share of the Tinder organization.

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So the Growth strategy for REVOLUT is to bring in as many users as possible to make a transaction of at least five Euros. If the AHA moment is met, users are significantly more likely to return. They try out additional features like currency purchase and eventually redeem the card. Unfortunately, it is not possible to decipher the average balance of users who typically redeem the card, but it is advisable not to compare it to the amount but to the chronological distance from the First TouchPoint.

Because the strategy is provided, they are constantly promoting the activity that is in focus, both in communication and within the app.

So to reach the first level, ie acquisition, viral propagation loops are used, the reason for which is now understood. A referral from a friend can build much more trust than thirty ads.

What's more, the AHA moment is fulfilled if you not only have the App, but also someone you can interact with. For Facebook, for example, determining the number of connections in the early stages of a growth strategy was the primary metric. Once a user had at least 7 friends, he understood what the social network was all about and had a significantly lower dropout rate. Of course, this had to happen within a certain amount of time (7 days).

The interaction in case of Revolut is the movement of money. Recharging works just like paying by credit card in the web store. There will be an immediate transfer to our account and no transfer charges. That is, if you loose the credit card issued by your bank, you can deposit and pay with your Revolut account at the touch of a button. You can solve this at a cashier. Let's face it, it's a very "Fancy" thing (Immediacy).

Revolut North Start Metrics for Early Adopter Stage:
The real north star metric is financial transactions, e.g. saving money, spending money, sending money, investing money, etc.
User needs to be acquired through at least two AHA moments:

1. Send and receive money

2. Multiple currency account management for one card

MOA = Monthly active users. Typically the number of monthly active users is one of the primary KPIs,

Anyone in this world has to pay money at some point, whether this is for rent, groceries or travel.

In some cases uses tend to be using Revolut more frequently (e.g. if you pay your groceries with your Revolut card), in other cases less frequently (whenever I travel abroad).

The ultimate goal is to get people to use Revolut on a daily basis, however, this might take years to shift people's behaviour from a travel card that is used once a year (or a few times a year) to an everyday card.

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Revolut Growth Strategy Reverse engineering

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Revolut has undoubtedly revolutionised the fintech industry. More than nine million users have already been infected by a London based company. In this article, based on our existing knowledge and experience, we decipher the Growth Hacking strategy and tactics behind Revolut's expansion using publicly available data to show the relationship between features and growth strategy.