Cory speaks to entrepreneur, founder and CEO Sean Rad, who is best known for creating the revolutionary dating app Tinder, which has made more than 20 billion connections, garnered more than 50 million active users across 195 countries and was recently valued at a staggering $3 billion dollars. In this weeks episode, Sean talks about how he got into technology, advice to non-technical people getting started at building technology companies, he takes us back to the very moment the idea of Tinder was born, what he did to get it on the map, early day controversies, the moment he knew it would be transformative to society, and the evolution of its users.
[00:01:06] Cory Levy: Thank you, Sean, for joining the show today. My first question to you is how did you get involved in tech?
[00:01:12] Sean: Thank you for having me, Cory. I wouldn’t say I really got involved in tech because there was a passion for technology per say. It was more about a passion for solving problems I would see around me, and the best way to solve those problems was utilizing technology. My first technical endeavor was in college. I think I was in freshman year.
I was sitting in class not paying attention really, but really observing that all of my friends around me were on laptops and they were switching back and forth between different applications to communicate.
This is sort of before mobile phones really consolidated all of our means of communication. I saw people were going from one email account in one browser to another email account. They have the school e-mail, their work e-mail and then they were on AIF to sustain their legacy relationships, but then they’re also using Gchat. They were, for the most part, communicating with a similar set of individuals just using all these different interfaces. I thought that was really inefficient and also, these different systems didn’t play nice together.
That’s where I came up with this idea for Orgoo, which took all the different ways you communicated and not only put it into one place, but it found interesting integration points. This is pre-Gmail and pre-mobile. A lot of the stuff we were doing at Orgoo are standard today. I really didn’t know what I had to do you build this thing. I just had an idea and I needed someone to build it. I went to the computer science department and convinced one of the faculty members to allow me to send an email to the entire CS department, because back when I was in college, Blackboard just emerged.
Blackboard had invented mailing lists. You had restricted access but you were allowed to email people in your class or if you’re part of the student body, you can email people in the department. I convinced one of the faculty members to allow me to email, I think it was about a thousand CS students at USC where I was going and it was basically just asking for help.
I learned along the way as I was building this product and the solution with some of the CS students that got together to help me, I started learning about tech from them and learning about systems and also interface design. I think I took a crash course in both tech and interface design because what we were doing, particularly as my first endeavor in technology, was pretty ambitious in the sense that you’re not only taking all these different interfaces and integrating them into one simple interface, but you’re also working with some pretty complex technology to meet e-mail.
Synchronous and asynchronous messaging is not only mission critical. You have to get it right out of the gate, but they’re also pretty complex systems to scale. It was interesting to start there. I kind of started in the deep end.
[00:03:56] Cory What would your advice be to the non-technical listeners that want to get involved in tech but are afraid to because they don’t have domain expertise.
[00:04:05] Sean: I think people get lost in the platform or how they’re delivering the solution. They get lost in that a little too much. Like I’ll hear people come and tell me, “I have an idea for a mobile app.” Well, just framing it that way is a problem because a mobile app is just the delivery mechanism, that’s not an idea. People need to focus on understanding the problem, understanding the customer more, empathizing with the customer and then letting everything come after that.
I’ve always been in the mindset that, the hard part is actually really clarifying the problem, having a clear vision on how you want to solve it. Then the easier part for me has always been finding the people or the tools and the resources that can help build that. I think you first need to start with an understanding of what you’re building and then a very high-level understanding of what are the different tools you need to put together in order to build it. Once you’ve achieved that point, finding the people and finding their tools, as long as you’re able to articulate it well and you’re able to convey passion, I’ve always found that people will join the cause. I think the harder part is having something that people gravitate towards and want to help you on. Once you have that, getting help is easier.
[00:05:16] Cory: How many different projects or companies did you start before Tinder?
[00:05:20] Sean: I started Orgoo, my first company, which was the unified communications one. Then I started Ad.ly which was — We pioneered the concept of sponsored content on social media. We were the first to go out there and look at celebrity tweets and celebrity social media content and look at that as actual quality content that deserves to be monetized or the celebrity’s time or the content creator’s time deserves to be monetized. Then we created a network of 3,000 celebrities and about 5,000 advertisers. We were the biggest in the space.
Then I sold Ad.ly. This is right when the iPhone came out and I started becoming obsessed with mobile. Around that time, I was just learning and experimenting with different things. Probably in that period, I probably built three things, but never really launched them because they never felt right once I was able to touch and feel them. Tinder, in a way, was the conclusion of a lot of the learning I was going through by experimenting with these other products.
[00:06:22] Cory: What did you learn in your past projects that contributed to the success of Tinder?
[00:06:26] Sean: I was really fascinated with this idea that the mobile device can empower you in the real world. Desktop computers, laptops; they’re really devices that you would use in work mode or entertainment mode at your home or at your office and they didn’t really travel with you. Whereas the mobile device went with you to the coffee shop. It was always on. I was constantly looking for different ways where you could build applications empowering the real world.
The thing that I was experiencing or struggling with in my life, in my day-to-day life, was meeting new people. It was often the case that there was a girl or someone that I wanted to get to know, but I lacked the courage to walk up to them. I was nervous that I would get rejected. These two things came together to inspire the idea for Tinder.
When I was sitting in a coffee shop one day, I was with a bunch of friends and there was a girl across the room that I really want to talk to. I lacked and courage, my friends lacked the courage. This is a common occurrence people probably experience every day. She looked at me across the room and I looked at her. In that moment, it was almost like an invite. She was giving me a signal that she’s interested and I was giving her a signal. As I realized that, that took away the anxiety, the pressure, the fear of rejection, then I became obsessed with the idea of how can I turn that moment, that behavior that happens, that real-world behavior that is natural but it’s not a common occurrence, how can I make that a more common occurrence as the cure to meeting new people? That was the impetus of Tinder.
[00:07:59] Cory: What was the very first step you took right after that to start the company?
[00:08:03] Sean: Tinder was something that I literally mocked up and designed and presented in a hackathon in 24 hours. This was weeks after the coffee shop moment. I didn’t really have a chance to sit down and put my ideas on paper, but the hackathon gave me a forum to do that. We designed the whole thing in 24 hours, won a hackathon that we are part of, but then tabled it because I had a team working on another project called Chordify. Tinder was something that I was so passionate about, but we didn’t really have the time or resources to build because we were distracted by something else.
Then eventually, about three months later, we had some resources free up, and I pushed the team to work on building Tinder nights and weekends. It wasn’t something that we thought at the moment could change the world of revolutionary. It was really just something that I almost saw as an experiment and a solution to my problems and my friends’ problems. We very quickly learned, just amongst the few hundred friends that we told to use it, once we launched, we very quickly learned that it had transformative benefits. That’s when we got rid of Chordify. We said we’re going to focus on Tinder, because Tinder really, really, really was at least impacting the lives of our friends around us. We figured that if it added value to our lives that there would be millions of people like us that could benefit from it.
[00:09:26] Cory: I think I remember getting that text from your co-founder. Was that October 2012 or something when you first launched?
[00:09:34] Sean: Yes, it was August or September. I think the text you might have got is either “download this and thank me later,” or “find out who likes you.”
[00:09:44] Cory: I think it was the latter. Was there a particular moment in time that you knew Tinder was going to be massive?
[00:09:48] Sean: Justin Mateen, my co-founder, I think he was the brains behind seeding Tinder with the right people and making sure the product resonated with at least college students, which was who we’re targeting. We always told ourselves that the true test to see whether or not Tinder can impact or add value to people’s lives was if college students, who are otherwise in a very social environment where they can very easily meet new people, if they’ve found value in it, then we figured everyone else could find value in it. We focused on colleges. I think the moment where I really realized that Tinder was potentially transformative was when we launched it at USC.
What we started seeing was even amongst our friends and social groups that people who knew of each other or would go to parties together, who liked each other but never really expressed that desire to go out on a date or do something we’re now being connected in tinder. We kept hearing our friends tell us that a guy or girl that they know, but never really would have the ability to connect with them this way, were now going on dates. Those stories that we would hear at a certain point became so prevalent in our lives that I was like, “Wow, this is top of mind for everyone around us and this is almost like an addictive behavior. We’re getting so much recurring value out of this that people won’t put it down.”
At one point, I think it was month four, we were looking at our metrics and we had about a 90% download from our ratio and people were using it every day. We had I think 80% of our audience used it 30 days in a row, which was just remarkable. For any application having that level of engagement was unheard of. At that point, we were like, “Okay, this thing has transformative benefits to society.” That’s when I knew that everything, the data, the qualitative and quantitative data was pointing in the right direction.
[00:11:47] Cory: That’s wild, that’s really cool. What were some of the early things that you and your co-founder did to get attention for Tinder?
[00:11:54] Sean: You got to first start with a unique experience that I think does a very effective job of connecting people. We had that, you saw that, but we also knew that the network that we were building was just as important as the product itself because our product was people. If we’re not showing you the right people and the most relevant people, then you’re not going to be engaged on the product.
We really focused on growing Tinder amongst groups of friends so that when you open the app, you not only heard about it from a friend, which increased I think your desire to try it out and really explore it, but you saw people that were somewhat acquaintances or people you saw around campus and the network was very strong. What we did was we went from location to location, identified who the most influential individuals in those places were. It’s the person that everyone looks up to on a campus or let’s say in Los Angeles, you have these social media influencers or these socialites that people look up to either because of their fashion tastes or an authority on something.
What we did is we focused on convincing those individuals that Tinder was a great application and could add value to their lives and we just let them spread the word. We didn’t incentivize them to spread the word, we didn’t encourage them to spread the word, all we did is educate them on the benefits of Tinder. Again, the product was so good the network was so strong that it allowed the word of mouth to happen. We focused on the foundation of the building first, which we knew early on was very important.
[00:13:29] Cory: Got it. I want to talk a little bit about the controversy. Do you have any stories in the early days of Tinder your first hand or second hand where there was some positive controversy that got your attention? Airbnb had that moment in time where someone wrecked the house and destroyed the house. That was very pivotal moment within the company. Was there anything like that at Tinder?
[00:13:48] Sean: A lot of how we made decisions and who we became was again a result of our experiences. One of the things that we really believed in wholeheartedly was this idea that Tinder had to grow organically among tight communities. One controversial decision we had to make was at a moment in time, our major investor was the Match Group. The Match Group gave us the ability to promote Tinder to a wide audience that they had across all their legacy products. We decided not to do that. We decided against that distribution, In fact, there were a lot of moments where we had the opportunity to get wideset distribution.
Another example was Kim Kardashian wanted to work with us and promote Tinder, but we actually said no to those opportunities. That was very controversial.
[00:14:36] Cory: Why did you say no?
[00:14:38] Sean: The reason we said no is because we were very set on allowing the product to grow organically because what we knew is that if someone downloaded the product because they got an e-mail or they saw a post from Kim Kardashian and they went into it without a high level of intent, that they would just download it, create a profile and maybe delete that and that profile would be stagnant in the ecosystem. It would actually diminish the value in the ecosystem. We really wanted quality over quantity in the early days because we wanted the network to build and we wanted a strong network.
I think that decision — It was a hard one to say no to free distribution, that decision I think was critical in keeping a healthy ecosystem, which ultimately led to an effective product. Just because you have an opportunity to do something, to distribute a product, to work with a partner, a lot of the times you need to step back and assess and play that narrative out and predict whether or not, in the long run, it will get you the results that you want.
One of the hardest things to do at any company, yet alone a company that’s growing as fast as we were growing is sort of prioritize resources. Develop an ethos around how you make decisions and what opportunities you say yes to versus no. One of the things we did really well was filter through the noise and filter through the myriad of companies, investors and everyone who wanted to work with us because we were growing so fast. Everyone wanted a piece of it and we were really able to stay grounded and focused on only the partnerships and opportunities that added value and we would fit within our mindset and frame of how we thought Tinder needed to grow.
It’s really hard. It’s hard to say no to money. It’s hard to say no distribution. I think those are the moments that really developed our culture around decision making and brought the team closer together as we were able to make these tough decisions together.
[00:16:35] Cory: What’s something controversial today that you think will be commonplace tomorrow?
[00:16:39] Sean: Well, I’ll tell you something that I wouldn’t say is controversial, but I would say is something that’s overlooked, which is, we talk a lot about diversity and inclusion in the sense of human rights. That is absolutely an important discussion. What we don’t talk enough about is framing the discussion around how diversity and inclusion actually helps companies succeed. They’re actually pivotal and necessary to the success of the company.
The bottom line is, if you aren’t taking advantage of the voices around the table, and you’re not letting each of voice add maximum value, and you’re not creating an environment where every idea is either heard and rejected and people can learn why we’re not doing something or accepted and people learn that every voice is valuable and that they can contribute, I think you’re doing a disservice to the organization.
One thing that we really focused hard on at Tinder, is this idea of a very bottoms-up organization, where I really viewed my job as CEO to listen to the organization, listen to our users and find the thread across all these different ideas and find the common theme and just add it and get everyone focused around a concept that they’re all talking about. We don’t really realize they’re all saying the same thing.
Even though at least in my experience, bottoms-up organizations find the greatest success, I think we look at top-down organizations. We look at the heroes in tech whether it’s Steve Jobs or whoever. We have this idea of them as being top-down. They’re the visionary, they go up Mount Sinai, come down with some massive vision and everyone’s executing that vision.
The reality is companies actually don’t work that way, particularly the bigger that you get. When you have thousands of opportunities, when you have this massive ecosystem like Tinder, you really need to listen to the people who are on the front lines. You really need to listen to your users and your decisions should be guided by what the team is seeing, what your users are seeing and what they want. Not by some guru visionary just coming up with all ideas because the reality is that great ideas don’t form that way. Also, great ideas are very iterative. But also, great organizations don’t depend on one person. They depend on teams. If one person decides to leave, the organization still needs to grow and function on its own.
The things that we idealize as entrepreneurs and startups growing our companies are often very untrue and very hurtful to the organization at scale. That’s something that we need to talk more about, so young entrepreneurs can learn from that and really build inclusive environments. Not only because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s what’s needed for the company to grow.
[00:19:22] Cory: Totally. I have one more question about Tinder and then I want to jump into some more questions about your life and how you manage it. The one last question I have on Tinder is, it’s often been talked about as you’re creating and hookup culture, where people are just looking for short-term relationships. How as a company and as individuals have you all navigated that?
[00:19:40] Sean: I always tell people that you can find whatever you’re looking for on Tinder in the sense that we’ve probably created more marriages than any platform in history. I look at the bar as a platform, or your parents making introductions as a platform. I think there is no question that we’ve created more connections than any platform in history, but we’ve created more of everything. More marriages, more hookups, more friendships, there are business connections that are happening in Tinder. These are all things that stem out of connecting humans. We really focus on the first part of that. We focus on making the introduction. We don’t judge, dictate or frame what happens after that because it’s not our mission and it’s not what we set out to do.
If you go back to the story that I told you, what the company really focuses on is destigmatizing that initial connection, allowing connection to happen because there are so many connections that go unnoticed every single day. What happens after that is not our place to judge. There’s no messaging in the app, there’s no user experience that is optimized for a hookup, nor is there one that optimized for a marriage. What the experience is optimized for is an introduction. What happens after that is up to the user.
The reality is, everyone wants different things at different stages of their lives. When you’re in college you’re not necessarily looking to get married. A lot of our users are 18 to 24, well now, they’re a little older [laughs], but they’ve graduated since then. Our product is a result of the wants and desires of the audience. Those wants and desires are actually involved. What’s interesting is a lot of the relationships that are formed on Tinder maybe as a hookup because there are a bunch of colleges as soon as they start using it. Those relationships are maturing to become marriages. Whereas four years ago, we probably had more hookups that we did longtime relationships.
I think just by virtue of age group and the user base coming to age, those dynamics are changing. The product hasn’t changed, but the individuals and their desires have changed. I think this idea that Tinder promotes something in society or dictates to our users what they should do is just wrong. Tinder is a platform that connects people. What people decide to do with that connection is completely up to them.
We never saw it as appropriate or our place to judge. There’s a limit though. We’ve done a lot to really stop and come down hard on abusive or bad behaviors. We have some very complex algorithm systems that detect any type of unwanted behavior on the platform and that could be someone being a douchebag. We very quickly curate and edit that out of the ecosystem.
Eight months ago, we launched a whole initiative around making sure our ecosystem was friendly and inclusive to the transgender community. We noticed that transgender uses were getting attacked on the platform. They’re getting attacked on a lot of other platforms and we came down on that extremely hard. We reoriented the entire product to be inclusive of all genders, we built features that the transgender community were telling us they wanted to serve not only prevent abuse, but also help them identify and find the person that they’re looking for.
That’s an example around what we really believe in, is that every person deserves to meet as many people as they find necessary in order to find that one or for that meaningful connection. What we really care about is creating quality meaningful connections. What happens after we make that introduction, again is up to the user. Everyone wants something different.
[00:23:26] Cory: Let’s talk real quick about you. Do you have morning, afternoon routines?
[00:23:31] Sean: The one thing that I can’t live without is meditating [laughs]. I have a lot coming at me on a daily basis and being mindful and being in control allows me to really not get emotionally reactive toward any one thing and really look at the landscape of what I’ve to deal with during the day and prioritize the things that truly matter. That extra few seconds in my brain that allows me to observe what’s coming at me and calm down and really pick the things that I’m going to tackle today are critical.
I start my day with first meditating, going through a gratitude exercise, where I actually sit down and write down all the things that I’m grateful for that morning because I think that puts me in a very appreciative mindset, which is really important to me because I think people take things they have for granted. If you constantly wake up and remind yourself how fortunate you are for everything, think it starts your day out right away. Then I write down the two or three things that I want to accomplish today and I tackle those things and I focus on them.
Again, it’s not like I necessarily go back to that list throughout the day but I think Just writing it down, the act of consciously saying, “Of all the things that are coming at me today, these are the things that I care most about today,” level sets you and focuses all your energy on those three things versus diluting energy across so many things and not allowing you to really master any of them.
[00:24:54] Cory: What are some of the things you’re grateful for?
[00:24:55] Sean: It’s different every day. You could be grateful for your morning coffee or you could be grateful for your family or a roof over your head. For me, I have a lot of things to be grateful for. Reminding yourself every day how all of this, both the good and the bad, is a gift is a very important exercise.
[00:25:16] Cory: What would your advice be to young people who’re trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives?
[00:25:21] Sean: I think the most important thing that I’ve realized is that the key to innovation and the key to growth is humility. If you approach things with a level of sureness and confidence that you think our heroes and the figures you admire in history had, then I think you will miss the 101 lessons throughout the day. The 101 experiments that could inspire greatness in your life.
I think the misconception we have about successful people is that they’re perfect, they’re successful, they know what they’re doing, the reality is that they’re just like all of us. They wake up every single day, they’re still learning, they’re still challenged. The second that you lack humility and you’re not able to say, “I need to learn about something,” is the second you stop growing, is the second the organization stops growing.
You see a lot of large organizations get jaded or stuck in their ways. They don’t think independently and constantly question and approach things from a beginner’s mind or state of humility that allows them to progress. It’s really important to stay humble and stay hungry. I know that that sounds obvious, but it’s actually a very hard thing to do because your desire as an entrepreneur is to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I got this. I can do this. I know everything and what not.”
I actually think you should look in the mirror and say, “I’m good at a couple things and I got this part of it, but I’m clueless on this other part.” That’s okay. You got to tell yourself and understand that it is okay not to be perfect because if you can approach it that way and you can accept your imperfections, then you will actually learn and grow. The organization and your peers and everyone around you will grow with you, but if you’re in denial about the things that you’re not good at or if you’re setting the standard that you have to be perfect, and it’s going to create so much pressure that will crush you. I think really relaxing and focusing on things that you love and not putting so much pressure on yourself to be perfect and know everything, to me is the key to growth and innovation.
[00:27:11] Cory: How do you make hard decisions? Do you have any tactics?
[00:27:14] Sean: One of the things that I do — And again, this is obvious, but I don’t think people do an effective job of this, is I write down my options. When faced with a tough decision, where I start is first define what my desired outcome is, then I write down all the different options I have. Again, that requires you to be honest with yourself. Look at every option and then predict where it’s going to play out. If you make that choice, how is it likely to end? What are the one, the two, the three ways that can play out?
I think once I run that exercise, I have more clarity and I have conviction around one of those options, but I also think the other thing that I never do is walk into something saying, “I know this is going to work.” Or have this level of sureness that I think will mislead me or the organization because the reality is at any moment in time, you’re making the best decision based on the information that you have. The more information you get, the better decision you’re going to make, but the reality is that information changes as you walk forward and the landscape changes. You have to be agile, be willing to change at any given moment in time, you have to assess your options and make the best decision with the information you have.
[00:28:36] Cory: My two last questions. Number one is, what couple of books or podcasts do you think young people should absolutely read or listen to right now?
[00:28:34] Sean: Aside from yours?
[00:28:35] Cory: Of course.
[00:28:38] Sean: [laughs] I love Tim Ferriss’ podcast. I’m very selective, I don’t listen to all of the podcasts, but I definitely pick and choose the ones that I think are talking about the topic I’m curious about. I love Reid Hoffman’s new podcast, which is wonderful.
As far as books, one of the things I love reading about and learning about is I would say human psychology. One of the things that I think you can’t learn enough about is people. You’re ultimately as an entrepreneur, in order to build successful products you need to really understand your customer and users. In order to build successful organization, you really need to understand the people around you, their strengths their weaknesses and put them in the right place. We need to empower them and put them in the right position where they can truly succeed and maximize their potential.
That requires you to really understand the depths of people, where they come from, why they sort of approach problems the way that they do. A good way of doing that is learning about psychology, but another good way of doing this also just reading about history. You look at pivotal moments in history and if you can get down to the psyche of the individuals, who were they? Where do they come from? Why did they make the decision that they did? What influences — Socially around them influences and then upbringing, brought them to think about, make that decision and approach it the way they did. I think if you could get to the bottom was that and learn about people, it is probably the most valuable tool in building products and building companies.
I spend a lot of my time interacting with people and learning from interesting people but also reading about great people in history, great moments in history and like what their inner workings were. What was behind the headlines? Focusing on the headlines is very easy, understanding what went into creating the headline is I think where more lessons are.
[00:30:26] Cory: Awesome. Thank you so much, Sean, for taking your time and joining on today’s show.
[00:30:31] Sean: Awesome.
[00:30:31] Cory: Thanks, Sean.
[00:30:32] Sean: Alright man, have a good day.
