How I Built This with Guy Raz

Hinge: Justin McLeod (2021)

May 8, 2023

01:32:28

Highlights

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Investor Rejections and Staying Idealistic as an Entrepreneur

01:13

Online Mental Health Care Plans and Clear Teeth Aligners

01:57

The Challenges of Reviving a Cool Company

01:19

I Flew to Switzerland to Meet My Stalker's Fiancé

00:54

Introduction

4min

The Importance of Relationships in Online Dating

3min

How I Changed My Life

4min

The Overachiever's Way to Life

2min

How to Overcome Uncomfortable Feelings

4min

How to Deal With Sobriety

2min

The Importance of Drinking in a College Environment

2min

How to Reach Out to Kate

6min

Secret Agent Cupid: A Practical Approach to Dating

3min

10.

The Importance of Having a Crush List

2min

11.

How to Start a Dating Website

2min

12.

Hinged: A Name for a Friends of Friends App

2min

13.

How to Match People on Dating Websites

4min

14.

Building a Dynamic Website With Squarespace

1min

15.

How to Build a Community on a Digital Whiteboard

2min

16.

The Importance of Balance in Entrepreneurship

2min

17.

How to Build a Mobile App

2min

18.

How to Get 2,500 People to Download an App

3min

19.

The Impact of the App on the 2500 People Who Used It

2min

20.

How to Start a Relationship App

2min

21.

The Don of the Dating Apocalypse

2min

22.

The Importance of Having a Relationship

2min

23.

How Deborah Copaykin Inspired Hinge

2min

24.

The Importance of Romance in the 80s and 90s

1min

25.

How I Met Kate's Best Friend in London

4min

26.

The Importance of Connection in a Relationship

2min

27.

How to Relaunch a Hookup App

6min

28.

How to Make Money With a Hard Paywall Business

2min

29.

The Relaunch of Hinged

3min

30.

The Importance of Branding Your Relationship App

2min

31.

How Hinge's Relaunch Has Changed the Way People Use the App

2min

32.

How I Relaunched Hinder in 2016

2min

33.

The Reboot of Hinged

2min

34.

The Relationship Between Match Group and Hinckle

2min

35.

The Relationship Between Match and Hinge

2min

36.

The Rise and Fall of Video Dating During the Pandemic

2min

37.

How to Start a Dating App After the Pandemic

3min

38.

The Lucky Things That Happened to Me

2min

39.

How to Deal With Scammers

3min

In 2010, Justin McLeod was in business school, still trying to get over a bad breakup that had happened years before. Determined to solve his own problem and convinced that the best way to meet people was through friends of friends, he built an app to replicate that experience. Gradually, Hinge grew into a streamlined swiping platform that yielded mixed results: good dates, bad hookups, mismatched swipes, and missed opportunities. Disappointed with this outcome and inspired by a sudden twist in his own love life, Justin redesigned Hinge as an app for finding meaningful relationships, with the tag line "designed to be deleted." Today, Hinge is owned by Match Group and is one of the most popular dating apps in the U.S.

This episode was produced by J.C. Howard, with music by Ramtin Arablouei

Edited by Neva Grant, with research help from Daryth Gayles.

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