Bumble’s new CEO reconsiders dating app’s signature feature of women making the first move: ‘It feels like a burden’

But new Bumble CEO Lidiane Jones is reconsidering whether women “making the first move” still makes sense. “It’s obviously been our signature,” says Jones, who took over as Bumble Inc. chief at the beginning of this year after Wolfe Herd stepped down and became executive chair. “But it feels like a burden for a subset of our customers today.”

When Bumble was founded, one of the main problems women faced on dating apps was the deluge of messages from men on leading competitor Tinder. Bumble’s requirement that women (in heterosexual pairings) send the first message to men was meant to solve that problem. But in 2024, daters’ problems are different—dating apps are in their “flop era,” some users say, and sending the first message feels like extra work in a sea of unsatisfying swipes rather than empowerment.

The company has been “iterating on a different set of experiences,” Jones says, that help women start conversations or cede that responsibility to someone else. “What it means to be an empowered woman today [is] that you feel in control of your experience,” she says. One option lets women choose pre-composed opening lines when they set up their accounts, which reduces the anxiety of what to say to a new match. Another model could allow men to send the first message. Overall, Jones aims to improve the “quality of profiles,” improving the profiles of users who haven’t added enough photos or filled out their bio—a common complaint among dissatisfied Bumble users. The app has started testing these options in New Zealand and Australia, Jones says.

Reevaluation of whether “make the first move” is still right for Bumble started under Wolfe Herd before Jones took over as CEO, Jones says. Now, Bumble is working toward a relaunch sometime in the second quarter of 2024.

Kristen Kilpatrick—Bumble

That relaunch would also aim to solve some of Bumble’s business challenges. Its share price is down almost 9% over the past year, trading at $11.19 yesterday—about 80% below its 2021 IPO high. Dating apps have struggled with consumers canceling paid subscriptions while tightening their budgets amid high inflation. In 2023, Bumble Inc. posted just over $1 billion in total revenue.

Since stepping into the CEO job, Jones has overhauled her executive team, bringing in former colleagues from Slack and Sonos, and laid off 350 employees. She restructured the company from a general manager to a functional model; there are no more GMs running individual apps across the Bumble Inc. portfolio (which also includes Badoo, Fruitz, and Bumble for Friends) but instead a head of technology overseeing all apps.

Jones joined Bumble from Salesforce-owned Slack. As Slack CEO, she was focused on workplace communication. She compares her new job to the transitions she made earlier in her career between enterprise and consumer. “At Slack, I didn’t spend as much time thinking about your emotional state. I wanted you to be productive—that was very important there,” she says. “A product like [Bumble’s] is so personal—we want to understand your emotional journey.”

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- Still not equal. March 12 marks Equal Pay Day, a measurement of how far into the new year women have to work to earn the same amount of money as men did the year prior. Recent metrics indicate that women still make an average of 83 cents for each dollar a man earns; the gap increases as women move up in rank.

- Resources for research. Stanford professor and longtime AI luminary Fei Fei Li urged President Joe Biden to fund new AI research centers at last week's State of the Union as researchers continue to lose talent to tech companies like OpenAI. Li says that without the funding, research centers won't be able to recruit competitively, and proper AI research will fall behind. The Washington Post

- No-Gro. Sara Menker turned her experience growing up amid Ethiopia's famine into Gro Intelligence, an AI-powered climate data startup valued at $850 million in 2022. However, Menker was fired by the company's board last month, and Gro is now laying off 60% of its workforce as it struggles to recover from overspending and lofty revenue expectations. The Wall Street Journal

- Help wanted. Italy’s fertility rate is one of the lowest in Europe, with women rejecting motherhood because of its financial and personal obligations. Prime Minister and single mother Giorgia Meloni is encouraging more child-rearing with tax breaks for mothers of two or more children, but women say the country isn't doing enough to accommodate women who find it impossible to work and have a family. Fortune

- Moving house. Marcia Fudge will step down as President Joe Biden's secretary of housing and urban development. Her exit will be the second Cabinet departure during the Biden administration. Politico

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Twilio appointed Inbal Shani as chief product officer of Twilio communications. Ripple promoted Mariel Kelley from VP to SVP, people and places.

ON MY RADAR

Oscar glory for Oppenheimer rewards studio chief Donna Langley's vision The New York Times

‘My period has become a nightmare’: life in Gaza without sanitary products The Guardian

South Carolina rep says she was ‘shamed’ as rape victim when asked on support for Trump The Washington Post

PARTING WORDS

"If you really want representation in this body of what the country is, you have working moms."

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who is leading an effort to allow lawmakers to vote remotely for up to six weeks after giving birth