Do Women on Tinder Ignore You? The Man Who Invented Swiping Reveals How to Finally Get Matches (with Tinder’s Jonathan Badeen)

Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast.

It's me, dating coach Connell Barrett, your podcast dating coach.

I'm here to help you get more dates, get a great girlfriend, get really good at flirting, basically find love, and do it by being authentic.

Authenticity, baby.

And today's episode is really special.

I have an interview with the most influential person I've ever talked to on this.

Actually, probably the most influential person I've ever interviewed in my life.

Well, okay, close second.

I did once interview the current president of the United States.

I have a story about that that I'll share on a future episode.

But the second most influential person I've ever spoken to is on today's episode.

Jonathan Bedin co-founded Tinder, and he also invented right swiping.

Swiping right, swiping swiping left, the dating apps, the way we use the dating apps, I should say.

It all is because of Jonathan Bedine.

He's brilliant.

He changed the world.

And he's also, as you're about to find out, a really good guy, just a regular, relatable guy.

And I was surprised when I first met him online on this interview because I went into this thinking, okay, the guy who founded, co-founded Tinder, invented right swiping.

He's going to be like a character from Succession.

He's going to be like Ari from Entourage.

He's going to be arrogant, loud.

Oh my God.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Jonathan is just a regular good guy who back in the day was struggling with dating.

He created Tinder or co-created it because he was struggling to get dates.

He was kind of nervous.

He's introverted.

He struggled on dates and struggled to meet women.

So he said, I need to find a new way to meet women.

And that's how Tinder was founded, essentially.

It was created because of his need for love and for dating success.

Boy, does that sound familiar to you?

It sure did sound familiar to me when I interviewed Jonathan.

So I'm really proud of this episode.

Jonathan is, in my opinion, he's a genius.

He's also just brilliant and bright and fun.

And he's got some really good dating tips in this episode.

He talks about the truth about whether or not the algorithm can mess up your profile and mess up your results on Tinder.

He's got some dating advice.

And you're about to hear a real

insightful and the most influential person in the history of the dating industry at minimum.

So get ready to listen to Jonathan Bedeen.

And this episode ran a few months back, back in January, I believe, but I think it got lost in the shuffle of a lot of other episodes I was posting.

So I wanted to repost this episode because it's worth it.

I'm really proud of this.

This might be my favorite interview I've done in all of my episodes.

So get ready to enjoy Jonathan Bedin with some Tinder tips to help you finally get some success on the dating apps.

Because I'll bet that you are like a lot of guys.

The majority of men do not have success on Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble.

Actually, a large majority of men have never had

a date in real life from the dating apps, I should say.

And so if that's if that's you as well, then you need some help, right?

If the only woman texting you on your phone is your mom asking you why you're still single, bro, that's a problem.

So I want to help you with that if I can.

That's where I come in.

What I do in my dating coaching is one of the things I do is I look at a guy's profile and I overhaul his online dating profile so that I can help take a guy from getting ghosted to getting dates with incredible women and matches.

My goal for every client is I want to take him from lack of matches, crickets, silence on a date, I'm sorry, silenced on the apps to, whoa, I got 10, 12 good matches this week, two dates a week, up to two, maybe three dates a week.

And that's what I want.

I want to offer guys a real transformation in their online dating success because that's what I was able to do back when I was struggling with online dating.

That's what the last few episodes have been about, all about online dating.

And so, so yeah, if you are ready to stop swiping in frustration and start seeing some real results, or if you just want to stop saying, Tinder hates me, the apps are rigged, and instead you want to get, I don't know, a date, two dates a week, then all you need to do is go to my website, datingtransformation.com, and you can book a free call with me, yours truly.

Basically, we'll hop on the call.

I'll give you a plan.

I'll look at your profile.

I'll give you a plan.

And I'll say, here's what we need to do to get you the matches, the dates, and the girlfriend that you want.

So if you are interested in looking into how that works, just go to datingtransformation.com, book a free strategy call today.

I'll give you the plan.

I'll help you fix the profile.

And

then down the road always, you'll be able to finally delete the apps, but for the right reason, because you found the one,

which is what I want for you.

I want you to help you get a girlfriend.

Okay, let's talk to Jonathan Bedine.

Here we go.

And welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast.

I'm your host, dating coach Connell Barrett.

I'm here to help you learn to flirt, gain confidence, and attract an incredible girlfriend, all by being authentic.

No sketchy pickup artist moves needed.

And today we have a pretty amazing, pretty special guest.

I'm really psyched to welcome to the podcast, Jonathan Bedin.

Jonathan isn't just the co-founder of Tinder, but he's the mastermind behind the iconic swiping feature that has changed the way online dating happens forever.

Thanks to his work, billions of people have swiped, have matched, have connected, and essentially totally reshaped how we date in the digital age.

These days, Jonathan is very busy watching a lot of TV and going to Disney World.

We'll hear more about that in a second.

And he's really an innovator and we're lucky to have him.

And he's going to help you have some sex, some success with online dating and find some really great dates and have some success so Jonathan thank you so much for joining me on the how to get a girlfriend podcast thanks for having me it's awesome to be here let me start with a

a play devil's advocate about something I'll tell you something I hear from a lot of my clients when I send them to Tinder and to other online dating platforms they say ah tinder come on that's for hookups it's for casual flings it's not where I'm gonna find love it's not where I'm gonna find a girlfriend.

What's your response to that?

I'd say

two parts to that.

One,

you know, most relationships probably started with a hookup.

So

just because people,

you know,

a large contingent of users on Tinder, I think it's the majority, I don't know the latest numbers or whatnot, but they're actually looking for a relationship.

Doesn't mean they're not open to a hookup, but

so there is that.

But on top of that, it is used for everything it's you know the number of marriages that have happened is insane the

you know I get invited to different weddings and stuff like that

and it's really what you make of it I think some of that stigma really came out of the fact that like we launched

we launched the app in on college campuses this is sort of where we started and you know and that's kind of

that market, that's kind of what they do.

They're a little bit more hookup centric and all.

And so it kind of that came from that.

But it really isn't.

It's whatever it is that you're looking for.

You should be able to find it on Tinder and, of course, the other platforms.

Absolutely.

I have dated some wonderful women I met on Tinder and other apps, but we're going to talk about Tinder today for obvious reasons.

And I had some flings.

And I had some real relationships.

And I had, to your point, I had a couple things that started off seemingly casual, but then they became something a lot deeper.

So yeah, something casual or what you might think is casual at the beginning can actually become something longer lasting, right?

Well, it starts off less pressure.

It's a little bit easier to be your more authentic self when it's low pressure like that.

Yeah, I've also found it a lot easier to get a woman out on a date with you, looking at it from the straight male perspective.

It's easier to get a lot of women out on a date with you if it just seems low pressure.

It's like, hey, we're going to have fun.

We're going to have a drink or two.

We'll talk.

We'll chat.

Who knows what might happen?

As opposed to, I must find my soulmate on this date.

So there's nothing wrong with having it low pressure.

It's just a way to get more people out on dates with you.

Absolutely.

I can relate quite a bit to that.

I know when I used to have a really hard time dating

before Tinder.

And, you know, every time I did go out on a date,

which was very rare,

there would be such pressure on me,

self-induced pressure, thinking like, oh, you know, is this my, when is, I got to make the best of this because I don't know when the next date's going to be, you know,

and trying to make the most of everything to the point, like, I have literal sweat, you know, like stains on my shirt and stuff.

And then

once we built Tinder,

it made it easy enough for me to just kind of go on enough dates.

It was like I didn't care so much anymore about,

is this the one or whatever.

It's like all I care about is going out having a drink or something meeting this person and if it works out great awesome if it doesn't I'll go out with somebody tomorrow or you know next week it's it's no big deal and to the point where it was it kind of flipped so

in the future it was sort of a lot of the times the the women I'd go out with would be the ones who were more nervous and I was the one who was just chill because it was it was not a big

it was not a big deal to me at that point.

Because you finally had options.

Yeah, and I wasn't there to hook up or anything.

It was just not,

I wasn't putting my entire future into that night.

That's so insightful, what you just said.

I didn't know that about you, that you had a relative scarcity of dates or dating options back in the day.

Is that right?

Yeah, I would say so.

I think that just me being,

I think I probably could have got plenty of dates, but I didn't have the confidence or the,

you know, just it was me going up and hitting on a girl or something like that was

not going to happen generally, which makes it a little hard to, you know, ask somebody out.

And that's where, but I'm much more comfortable in a digital sense, a little bit of protection of a screen between me and a person to

take that initiative then.

Do me a favor.

Do you have any memorable dates from before you came up with the idea for using a swiping, a dating swiping app?

Do you remember any of the early dates you had early on that led you to create or co-create Tinder when you realized, you know what,

I got to change some things here based on some problems I have, and that led you on the path to Tinder?

Any dating stories for back in the day that are relevant to you?

You know, I wouldn't say that there were any specific stories that led to it.

And a lot of the impetus for

Tinder was my co-founder and noticed some of the issues with the existing products that were out there.

But

I think just generally

the troubles I had made me a little bit more open to the idea of trying to create something.

Because between just meeting people in the world or using things that existed back then, like Match.com or OKCupid and all, the kinds of things where I go out with

people where it's very clear that they were just out for me to buy them a meal and

essentially ghosting me afterwards and stuff like that.

I think that was from MySpace back in the day.

But I think to me, I kind of forget about that stuff.

To me, the most memorable part was just how absolutely nervous I was.

And like I said, I'm not exaggerating about the amount of sweat that I had pouring off of me.

So I think

whether those things happened or not, whether that would have deterred Tinder from being created, I don't know, but it sure did make me maybe slightly more motivated to figure out a platform that would work for me a little bit better.

Well, what's amazing about Tinder or any online dating app, once you get it working for you, is it can give you lots of dates, lots of options, an abundance of options.

And to your point from a couple of minutes ago, it can make it so much easier for you to relax on a date because all of a sudden the stakes are not as high.

If you have two or three more good leads in your inbox, in your queue, is that what you started to feel once you started getting some more dates from online dating?

Oh, exactly.

It was that.

It was that fact I was,

you know, I'm I'm sure the first few Tinder dates were much like the, you know, pre-Tinder dates.

But after that, it was just like, oh, well, I've got another one tomorrow.

And maybe in the back of my mind, I'm even thinking about that date tomorrow instead of the one that I'm on right now.

Not that you should be very focused on whoever you're with or whatever, but I mean, just like

it, it's just that

there just isn't that pressure.

You'd realize how many people there are out there,

you know, especially in a big city like Los Angeles, but

you realize how many different options there are and uh and and you have a way a means to find them i remember i felt the same way as you i had very few dating options back when i first started working on my dating life when i realized i needed to i had a scarcity of options if i had a if i had one date every three months that was a really good quarter for me yeah so the pressure was on and i remember it was combination of tinder and match i was using i was using those two platforms And I remember one night through both of those platforms, mainly Tinder, I had three straight dates and three straight nights and three different really cool, cute girls.

And all three dates went pretty well.

I think I made out with all three girls and all three nights.

And I walked home on that third night thinking, oh my gosh, I didn't know that I was that attractive to women.

And I think I took all the credit in the moment, but

it was the platforms that were making it, that were making,

that were giving me the beginnings beginnings of abundance, the beginnings of some options, and that felt amazing to my confidence.

Well, it's you.

It's just a matter of

pulling you out.

These platforms are nothing more than,

in many ways, I see them as less as dating services and more as introduction services.

They're not there for you on the date.

They're there to get you introduced to somebody for the date.

And I think, you know,

it's what you make of them and, you know,

and

how that affects you and

allows you to come out of your shell or, you know, express yourself.

A lot of guys struggle with what to talk about on dates, how to hold a good conversation.

Do you remember, I'm going to ask you to summon your younger.

singler self.

When you first started getting some good options, do you remember any tips that began to work for you, especially when you felt more comfortable?

Yeah, I mean, I guess to me, you know, it's always just a little bit about, you know, what you do and what your family.

I mean, obviously, you know, you don't want to focus too much on,

you know, what you do.

That sometimes can be a bad thing to some, but I mean, it is a big part of our life.

You know, and try to figure out the other person's interests and just sort of, you know, for me, it was generally just trying to keep it sort of natural.

The most, you know, trying to force something is where it probably wasn't going to go well.

Yeah.

And so it was,

yeah, it's just trying to learn about the person.

And if the other person's interested and or if they're, you know, good at it, they're going to be asking you a lot of questions.

And at some point, you just really have to figure out like, wait, am I the one?

Am I, am I answering too many questions?

I should probably be, you know,

engaging the other person more too and learning.

Yeah.

One of the tips I share with my clients and I'll share right now with the listener is if you catch yourself asking more than three straight questions

without

her asking you a question, feel free to answer one of your own questions as if you had asked yourself.

So if you say, oh, where did you go to college?

Oh, what year did you graduate?

Oh, what did you major in?

Take a pause and say, okay, I'm going to answer that last question myself as if she asked me.

That way you're not constantly trying to interrogate her.

Because that quote-unquote interview mode, I'm sure you've heard about that, right?

Of course.

Of course.

Yeah.

No, I think that's important.

And for me, that comes naturally.

I'm somebody who just, you know, that's probably one of my own downfalls.

I'm all too eager to share the same information that I asked somebody else.

Fair enough.

Fair enough.

And okay, so let's go back to the story of how you came up with swiping.

And we were talking right before I hit record about what the truth is.

There's some myth about this that you got the idea for swiping in the shower,

which maybe that's an apocryphal story.

Tell us the truth.

What's the story of how you came up with the right swipe?

Well, first off, it is a cool story, but that's the not quite as true story, which is, you know, I had the epiphany, basically coming out of the shower, looking at a mirror that was all fogged up, and wiping the mirror only to reveal my face.

And thus the swipe was born.

Sounds good.

It sounds amazing.

It sounds amazing.

I'm sure it's going to be in a movie or something at some point.

But

it's slightly based upon the real story, which was I actually would not have I actually came up with it prior to Tinder.

And I came up with it for a

flashcards, educational flashcards app that I had

been thinking about problems with it and it really had to do with trying to solve very specific problems like while trying to study for your flashcards while walking the class one-handed,

eliminating buttons and trying to indicate whether you got the card right or wrong and all of those sorts of things.

And I woke up one morning,

just

literally woke up, sat up in bed and was like, oh my God, I got it.

And basically the swipe had been born for this flashcards app.

And I was like, I've got to make this thing.

This is the best way to make a flashcards app.

Fast forward a few months, though, and

that's actually when I had met Sean,

my co-founder, Sean Rad,

and we were showing each other our work, and I had showed him the flashcards app and all.

And then when we ended up making Tinder,

we just ended up with a interface that was a stack of cards,

and

it was sort of,

it was

serendipitous, basically, and we just kind of ended up throwing the swipe in there.

I would never have come up with it for Tinder because I wasn't trying to solve those problems.

You have a big heart and an X button in there.

Didn't need it.

But it felt right to put it in there.

And we didn't even tell people about it.

We weren't trying to be sneaky or anything, really.

It was just, it was like, yeah, if you figured it out, it's like figuring out

Command or Control C on your keyboard instead of clicking the copy button or something.

It's just a keyboard shortcut.

And it was, so

it wasn't some big thing that we were like, we're going to change the world with the swipe or whatever.

And it was a few months later that we had a college student write in, and he said something along the lines of that he and his buddies walking down the street or campus or something like that, that they would say swipe right and swipe left as code about the ladies passing by.

Wow.

Change out lexicon that early.

Yeah, and that was the moment where, to me, I was all of a sudden I was like, oh my God, we tapped into something.

And it wasn't long after that where we actually did start including the swipe terminology in our marketing, you know, in our Twitter accounts or Instagram and all of that sort of stuff.

And so we started talking about it that way.

But it was that was really only in response from it sort of taking a life of its own.

That's amazing.

So the shower moment didn't happen, but

where the shower did come in was it's like, so I woke up with this epiphany and I go in, I go into the shower and I'm standing there in the shower, like going like, I'm like, does that work?

Is that, you know, why hasn't anybody done this before?

You know, so I was like, it was, I was like basically thinking through it, you know, completely in the shower, but there was no fogged up mirror, you know, but

thank you for setting the record straight.

Of course.

Let's talk a little bit about what you've seen works for men on Tinder in terms of strategy.

And let's start with authenticity.

That's my, you know, in a couple words, I'm all about be authentic, show women your true, real best self.

Because in my experience and with my clients, in my clients' experience, the more generic,

the more you try to say the perfect right thing, the more a guy tends to get in his head and the more bland you come off.

But if you really commit to being you in an attractive but genuine way, that's not going to attract every woman, of course, but it's going to attract women who are more your type.

So for example, I'm a nerd.

I love musical theater.

I love the Beatles and Abraham Lincoln.

I'll actually talk about some of these things on dates or with women.

Can you talk a little bit about authenticity, being yourself, how that can and does work if you agree that it can and does work on Tinder on dating apps?

I think it absolutely does.

I mean, ultimately, it's only going to, that's the only way you're going to succeed, you know, unless you are strictly looking for hookups and, you know, can keep the lie going or something for a while.

But, you know, ultimately,

whatever facade that you put up, it's going to, it's going to break down.

So you might as well start off and get the people that you're, you know, as you said, who are going to be more interesting to you and interested in you.

But Tinder in many ways was really built to try to

drive authenticity.

I don't think people realize this today as much, but some of the features that we originally did were including things like shared friends.

That was sort of taken away from us at a certain point,

but that was a big thing.

And for sort of safety, and you could essentially vet people, but it was trying to show that fun to person.

You didn't get to choose your name on there.

You didn't get to choose the original version of Tinder.

You couldn't even choose your photo as your Facebook photo.

And it was locked to that, trying to get

that real photo that you share with your family and friends.

It showed your shared interest with the person that, of course, today it's useless, but

based upon Facebook interests,

you know, you're not sitting there lying.

These are the things that you liked on Facebook.

You know, you weren't doing it for the purpose of that.

So I think that was really what we were trying to do.

Of course,

people have other ideas a lot of the time,

but that is where we were really going.

And because

we thought it was so important to sort of show an authentic side of oneself.

And people are going to see through it if you're not.

And it's going to

turn somebody off away to at worst make somebody think you're creepy and you know,

um, and deceitful.

Absolutely.

I had a first date once, this is in my book, where I was trying so hard to be what I thought she wanted.

Her name was Lauren.

Her profile on Tinder was all about I want an adventure man, or I like a man who's into adventure outdoorsiness.

So, I'm on the date, I'm lying through my teeth about how I love to go swimming with sharks in the Caribbean.

Total BS.

I have done that once, but I've not, yeah.

What did you do?

Sharks in the Caribbean.

I thought I invented lying about sharks in the Caribbean.

No, I did it once.

I'm not suggesting you should go do it, but it's not really.

Oh, you actually swam with sharks in the Caribbean.

Yeah, I did.

Oh, I see, Chibi.

I see.

Okay, well, you actually could have said it and been honest about it.

I'm not the adventure person.

Sorry.

Sorry for interrupting.

No, you're fine.

You're fine.

But I just said, oh, I'm going to say what Lauren needs to hear.

And of course, she friend zoned me.

She ghosted me.

Not because she could probably tell I was lying.

She could probably, but she could probably tell there's just something off about this guy.

But then once I started showing women, and in fact, I had a second chance with her.

I started leaning into that nerdy, dorky, smart ass I am, like a sweet, a sweet ginger nerd, but a little bit of edge through sarcasm.

She liked that type.

And so yeah, I just had to drop the facade.

And what's so cool about Tinder, or I think what, or what Tinder did in the world of dating is it said, hey,

let's really let you show your freak flag, your authentic, quirky, whatever self you are, and let's draw people in who like your type, right?

Absolutely.

And I think, you know,

you really shouldn't try to predict what somebody else wants anyway, because I mean, like, I think there's...

You look at it, you know, oh, I'm looking for somebody who's interested in the same things as me, right?

That's the key to success of relationship.

Or is it?

Because they also say opposites attract.

so I mean like you almost you don't necessarily even know What it is and so maybe you know, it's not really worth it to try to predict what the other person is wanting because You know, it may not be that or they may not even know what it is until they see what it is Same for yourself, really

You struggle with dating, right?

Sure you have a good job and cool friends, but you just aren't sure how to flirt.

The apps don't work for you, and sometimes women put you in in the friend zone.

It's frustrating.

Hey, I struggled with dating too.

As an introvert and a total nerd, I didn't just live in the friend zone.

I owned real estate there.

But I escaped using the dating philosophy of radical authenticity, which I've used to help thousands of men in 17 countries find love.

It's what I wrote about in my best-selling book, Dating Sucks But You Don't.

And radical authenticity is why Psychology Today called me the best dating coach in America.

And now I want to personally help you attract your dream girlfriend.

So go to datingtransformation.com and book a free call with me.

On our call, I'll tell you how my one-on-one coaching will help you find your dream girlfriend.

And you'll be doing it by flirting with confidence and authenticity.

No creepy pickup tricks needed.

So go to datingtransformation.com, book a free call today, and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend.

Have you ever...

Actually, back to Tinder and back to some of the features?

Obviously the swipe right, the swipe left, that's the foundational iconic feature.

But there's lots of other bells and whistles that have been on and off of Tinder over the years.

Are there any features you ever thought up that never made it on Tinder that you thought, oh man, that would have been a great idea.

We should have done that?

Oh, there's a billion.

I mean, that's actually one of the most frustrating things as time goes on is that you just you build this,

you know, everybody in that company just had a long list.

The list of things that we wanted to make just went on forever.

And

it was just a matter of picking which one are we going to try.

So there's all sorts of things that

we wanted.

Anything come to mind that you thought, oh man,

I wish we would have tried that.

Or that was a cool idea.

Or maybe an idea that was so out there you couldn't do it.

Well, I think one of my favorites that I wanted to do was a, you know, I won't go into full detail on it just in case anybody cares or whatever, but

it was basically sort of a group dating bar hopping type of product that I thought would have been pretty cool, trying to use Tinder,

which was trying to essentially make Tinder useful at a time when

that Tinder isn't generally useful.

Because, you know, like Tinder, for instance, like one of the, you know, the lower usage days are the days where people are out and busy and they've got things going on.

You know, the, you know, that's the time when people have downtime.

That's the time where they really use Tinder.

And so it was, that was sort of the goal is to try to like

try to make Tinder useful at those times when you're out and about with your friends and all of that.

Yeah.

And the thing about the right swipe, and correct me if I'm wrong, Jonathan, but I feel like it comes down to

it's fun.

It's fun to turn online dating into a game, or at least it can feel like a game, and games are fun.

Games feel good.

It feels good to swipe right and get a match, of course.

Who wouldn't like that?

But also, isn't there something about the anticipation of the possibility that's just as addictive and just as fun?

I think so.

I think

there's a little bit of that slot machine effect of like, you know, let me do one more.

I remember back in college, hot or not was a thing.

You know, it wasn't for dating, but it was for, you know,

they added that later, but it was, you know, it was just sort of like, I'm going to, I'll stop once I get one more when I see one more nine or something like that you know

so there was a little bit of that element going on but I think even just the sort of the the swipe action itself ends up sort of having a an emotional connection to it you know where you're sort of like oh hell no you know or you know they're like

you know you know there is that sort of a

emotional connection to it.

And I think that was,

and it kind of, I think the sort of that interface and everything and in general, it kind of feeds into that sort of almost people-watching kind of thing that

people like to do.

And to me,

I like to think of, as a Disney fan, I always think of Mary Poppins and

a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

And so that was, you know, not necessarily that quote, being

very cognizant of it when we were creating Tinder, but this idea of like, look, this is, dating can be a difficult thing and going through all of these things.

And let's see if we can try to make that process fun

and sort of disguising the work.

Because Tinder, you know, I think compared to other platforms

that

predated Tinder, Tinder was a little bit more of a numbers game.

It was a bit more go through a whole bunch of people.

and

that's going to ultimately you know whether swiping through a whole bunch of people and then going out on dates with a whole bunch of other people with people,

that's the idea is you're going to increase the chances of finding the person that's right for you.

And so

other platforms were a little bit more focused on, you know, diving into the person.

You'd spend more time on those and all.

So we had to make something that was fun to get you through more people faster.

The man listening to this episode, chances are his

biggest thorn in his paw of online dating, Tinder or whatever app he's on, he's not getting very many good matches, if any.

He's swiping and swiping and swiping, and he's just very rarely, if ever, getting that, it's a match.

What advice would you give that guy?

What should he look at first to start getting some of those matches and start getting those great feelings you get when you start swiping right and getting matches?

Well, I think some of it starts with

trying to

portray your best self, whether that be

evaluate your

photos and your profile and everything.

Everything on there, evaluate it.

And

you'll notice a lot that people put horrible pictures up on there.

I'm not saying you have to be a model or anything like that, but horrible quality photos, things like that.

And run it by your friends,

preferably women,

who can say, you know either oh that's not a good picture of you or like yeah that's not really gonna be interest

a woman so I think you know bringing people in to kind of help evaluate I know it can feel uncomfortable sometimes to expose yourself to to your friends and this side of you or whatever but

but I think that's important

You know, and I think also just it's utilizing the tools that are there.

And that, you know, there's a lot of tools that are in there from everything from sort of testing photos to trying to determine which of your photos is the best.

There's a lot of things for adding to your profile and all.

And those little things,

they can help.

Somebody sees that you like something

on there that they don't like, yeah, maybe it'll turn them off.

But guess what?

That's fine.

It wasn't going to work out with them anyway.

But

you're giving other people another reason to swipe right.

And

try to keep it a little bit lighthearted.

Try to add a little bit of

fun to your profiles.

And then

the paid features do work.

I'm not saying go spend all your money on them.

That's not the goal.

And in fact, Tinder was, we tried to

We tried to make the paid features something that it would just break the system if everybody had it.

But if it was something that we felt that everybody would truly benefit from having it,

then it shouldn't be a paid feature.

So the paid features we kind of saw as superpowers.

And so they're useful.

But I'm not, you know, you can get by just fine without them.

So if you don't need them, don't.

I'm not suggesting.

I make no money off of it now.

So don't.

I'm not trying to push anybody to go spend all their money on Tinder or any other of the platforms.

But you know, some some of them do work.

So it's worth trying.

And it might be worth trying.

You know,

the last I read, you know, is the average dater, online daters on three platforms.

Maybe try a little something different on each platform too, and you know, which is your own A-B test.

So I think those are some ways it might help.

Yeah, I think it's important to make sure that you're

expressing that authentic self in different ways on different apps, depending on the kind of woman you're looking to attract and the kind of app you're on.

So I'm going to show I have a Tinder profile.

It's a bit more

playful, edgy, more fun and light as if I was looking to date casually.

I have a hinge profile that is much more bread and butter kind of boyfriend material.

And

I could mix and match those if I want to.

So I think one of the, a lot of guys think, oh, you know, I think one of the biggest myths in dating is the apps just don't work.

Dating apps just don't work.

And I tell so many men, look, the problem is not dating apps don't work.

The problem is your profile doesn't work yet.

Let's make some changes, some intelligent ones, so you can start getting the kind of success you want.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I mean, there's a lot of proof that they do work.

That doesn't mean to say that, you know, things aren't difficult.

They're difficult out the bars, too.

They're difficult everywhere.

And it's a matter of

portraying yourself in the best way that you can.

Yeah, I think that was great advice about having some people, especially some single women or some women, look at your profile and having a little bit of personality in your profile.

I have a new client who came to me and I said, hey, let me see your Tinder.

Just see why you're struggling.

He's like, yeah, I have no idea.

I guess women just don't like me.

I looked at his profile.

There was one photo.

Just one.

It was a bathroom mirror shot.

Yeah.

And that was literally his only photo.

And all his bio said was, here's what I want.

There was no personality.

There was no humor.

And there were no other photos to show what this gentleman, what it would be like to date him.

And here's a smart, sweet, wonderful guy.

And he's mistaking his struggles on this dating app or on Tinder for him being unattractive.

I'm like, no, dude, you're amazing.

Your profile is terrible.

Yeah.

I think, you know, I think that's

a lot of people end up

taking it out on dating services as well as online services in general because of

either what

the people on there or what they're doing and all.

And

it is kind of what you make of it.

It's not to say it's all perfect, it isn't, but it is.

There are certainly ways to have a better profile than that, for sure.

Yeah, it's really

important.

It comes down to the core foundational things.

things really good photos attractive photos and some personality and not just pure information on a program.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Do you have any favorite

these could be things that you saw on Tinder when you were there?

Any favorite

any favorite little prompts or bios that made you laugh over the years?

Or that because they were so good or maybe they were so bad?

Yeah, there's so many.

I can't remember.

I'll I'll tell you, though, I think one of my favorite things, though, was that I don't even think it's on Tinder, and it was a friend of mine that had put on his profile.

I think Hinge has some sort of audio thing, and he used an AI thing with,

I don't remember if it was Obama or somebody, like basically an AI, basically vouching for him and the little voice note thing.

It's not like nobody thinks that it's Obama or whoever it was doing it.

It's just something that's like, it's a little fun and playful.

And it's something that he certainly attested to.

And so I thought that was

different.

It's just clever.

Yeah.

It's a nice kind of variety, a little pattern interrupt.

A lot of my clients have had success with, you know, on Hinge, you have the low-key flex caption prompt.

And I'll just say, put a screenshot of a really high credit score.

Like low-key flex, 810.

I get so many matches.

My clients do, too.

It's like, ooh, I think that's a high-key flex.

And it's not even my credit rating.

It's just a 810 credit rating.

So finding ways to have fun, finding ways to enjoy it.

And that gets back to something that

when I was asking you about how the swipe right is all about fun, because it feels good.

It feels good to swipe right and get a match.

And I think what

part of what Tinder's big innovation was and is, is that it just, it made online dating for those who got at least reasonable results made it fun it injected fun into dating and I think that's just so important because dating can be so unfun for so many people and I think and I think it kind of all goes back you know you're just talking about profiles and injecting fun into it how important that is because

you're you're essentially trying to give an idea of what going on a date with you is going to be like.

Yeah.

And you don't want to go on a date with somebody who's not you're not going to have fun with.

So if you're able to inject some fun into your profile, it gives a hint of like, look, we're going to have some fun.

That's just hugely important.

I agree.

One of the biggest mistakes I see men making, other than bad photos or no good photos, they do their Zoolander photos.

I don't mean ironically, they think they're being sexy.

So it's like, here's my sexy zoolander or here's my

brilliant, you know,

heartfelt Shakespearean thoughts about love and dating.

And I'm just like, no,

make her laugh.

Make her smile.

If you can make a woman smile, if you can make her laugh on your Tinder profile, because the prompt made her giggle, that's worth, that's like being 6'3 with six-pack apps for so many women.

Exactly.

Because you're telling them, hey, we're going to go out and have fun.

We might not get married, but hey, it's Tinder.

You're probably not going to get married.

And if you do, bonus, right?

Yeah.

It's like you're not going to be miserable, you know, all night.

You know, that's, that's, that's, I think what most people are just trying to avoid is misery.

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A lot of the men listening to this are introverts, naturally shy, naturally introverted.

And do you have any tips on it could be Tinder tips or it could be a first date tip for a guy who's more on the introverted or shy side to

still be able to have a great connection with a woman?

I mean

I float somewhere in between.

I think some people might call me introverted.

Some people might call me extroverted.

It kind of depends on the situation.

But I think, you know, from my own experience, the places where my introvertedness kind of showed was that sort of, especially in those nervousness, and I think the more you practice, the better.

And so

go out on those dates and just feel like

as much as possible.

And

you might even think like, hey, look, next five dates, they're going to suck.

They're all going to suck or something.

Actually, don't, you know, hope for something good.

But at the same time, like don't but like reduce the pressure on it and and just use it as experience to get yourself more comfortable um and and the only way to do that is to not

to not add you know to not make the stakes high i think yeah uh practice you know practice makes perfect and and there's a lot of uh

uh a lot of people out you know there's a lot of women out there who are introverted too so you know it's uh

that might be a good thing for you but at the same time it's going to make it a little bit harder for you you to meet.

So somebody's got to step up and try to act a little bit more extroverted to make it work.

Someone's got to lead that dating dance.

Exactly.

It should be you, listener.

It should be you, the man.

That's my opinion.

I can't have a Tinder insider, the ultimate Tinder insider here, without asking you about the algorithm.

I've heard so many things.

The ELO score, I don't know if that's real or not.

I hear, oh, if you're struggling on Tinder, it's not your photos.

It's the algorithm.

The algorithm doesn't like you.

Can you give us any insight, baseball, any secrets from behind the curtain of the Tinder algorithm?

Can that be the reason why a guy is struggling on Tinder if he's struggling?

Or is it just about his profile?

Any insider tips there or insights?

Well, it's certainly, you know,

there's algorithms.

I don't even know what the current algorithm is.

It changes over time.

There's

including the ELO thing was real.

That was a way of just of trying to

better match people.

But there's a lot of things that end up going into it.

And one of the things that really is one that really is heavily used we found over the years was like

was recency.

So that one's an important one.

You got to keep using it.

You can't, and I'm not like, again, I'm not there.

I'm not making money off of this.

But just telling you kind of how things work is that you have to keep using the thing because we want to show other, like, we don't want to match somebody up.

We didn't want to match somebody up with somebody who was not going to be there to answer them.

We were able to observe that

the better chance of

a conversation happening and thus ultimately success on Tinder was

that conversation happening and therefore the the increase the the more recently somebody used the app the higher the chance of of that happening.

So that was actually

one of the big levers that really there was.

So that's one of those things.

You do have to kind of be active on there in order to get those

matches.

I'm sure the algorithm can hurt some people and help people, but

it's something that they constantly are looking at and trying to adjust because ultimately they want the same thing as you.

They want you to meet people.

I know some people, there's conspiracy theories out there about like, no, they don't want you to meet,

you know, they just want you on there all the time and that they want you to,

they're holding everything back until you start paying them.

None of that's true.

I mean the best advertising for Tinder was a successful

use case, whether that be hookups or whether that be marriage or whatever.

Those are the people that were going to get the other people on the platform.

So we didn't care if we lost some people to a wedding.

That was amazing.

That was how we were going to get more people in.

So,

you know,

if you blame the app,

you're never going to be able to conquer the app.

I will say that.

Like, you know, I'm not saying everything's going to, you know, it's going to work for you exactly the way you want it to, and that, you know, there might be something back there that's getting in your way on the algorithm or whatever.

But ultimately,

it is,

if if you think that way, it's going to be really hard to improve yourself and make it better if you're blaming something else.

Even if it ends up not being, you know, you,

you use it as an opportunity to improve it.

Yeah.

I come back to the basics of, well, you and I were talking about football before we got on here.

You know, go Lions, go Chiefs.

Blocking and tackling.

So important.

It's the basics.

And with Tinder or any dating app, blocking and tackling to me would be good photos, personality, showing up consistently in terms of messaging people and doing the core foundational things that any digital platform will reward.

Answering messages instead of going quiet

and being responsive.

And of course, the good photos, the good profile, and these foundational things.

And if you do, if you do, one of my old coaches told me back in the day, he say, Connel, if you behave on Tinder the way you want others to behave in ways that'll make them feel good,

responsive, show up, good photos, if you make the app happy, the app is going to make you happy, or more likely make you happy.

Absolutely.

And the algorithm won't punish you.

No, and you know,

and the better you make the profile, too, like, I don't know what the current algorithm is, but like it probably does hurt you to have just one photo.

You know,

years ago, we did research, too, where we found like a certain number,

that there were a certain number of photos,

and obviously not every photo is equal to the next, but

your likelihood of matching increased with every photo that you added to your profile, up to a certain extent.

I don't remember what that number was.

But so that ended up being kind of one of our goals, is like try to encourage users to add photos up to this point to increase their chances of success.

And so I wouldn't be surprised if the algorithm takes things like that in,

factors that in.

But ultimately, I don't know what it is at the moment.

A couple of final questions here, Jonathan, and I will let you get back to your day.

You must have some fun stories about strangers coming up to you and saying, hey, you owe me a drink.

My last date was a disaster.

She ghosted me.

Or the opposite.

I can't even imagine how many weddings you've been invited to.

Any fun anecdotes of Tinder people either blaming you or praising you or both?

It's usually praising.

I mean, every once in a while somebody will say something, but I think most people probably, if they had bad experiences, they might keep it to themselves

to be nice to me, I guess.

But no, I've had, there's just so many

weddings.

I think the

now there's been so many that they kind of just blur together.

I just remember some of those early times, you know, when I was there.

And I remember when we first made Tinder that I was like, I was thinking to myself, like, you know, hey, if this doesn't work out, if, if I meet somebody, or not me, if I, sorry, yes, if I meet somebody who met

their husband or wife or something 20 years from now, the whole thing will then, you know, worth it.

And I'm pretty sure that's going to happen now.

And it was, it was just really early on

those sort of first people that came up and like, oh, I met whoever.

Actually, the first time I had somebody tell me that they were getting married and like the app app had not been out that long that was a little bit scary to me I'm like are you we haven't been around that long are you sure you're getting married but um

uh you know I it's uh

uh

and I think some of the stories too that have been really

uh some of the more proud ones to me were uh that made me uh more proud of Tinder was were the ones where relationships that would not have happened if it weren't for Tinder.

Like

people, it might be a racial difference or something like that where they're like if well if you gave me the option to choose

i would never have seen the person i would have never have met um there's uh

there's all sorts of crazy stories like that that have been um

been pretty special but it's uh

but i do get a kick out of it every time somebody tells me it's like yeah i had a a part of that uh nice i really i really want to uh

it's uh

the jason Kelsey one is the one that hit me the latest, being a fan of Travis Kelsey and all.

And I was just like, oh, my God.

I'm responsible for

Travis Kelsey's nephew or niece or whatever.

I think he's got nieces.

I don't remember.

But yeah.

That's got to be,

it's a jaw-dropping influence you've had on the world of romance and love and dating.

If you think about it, billions of swipes, billions and billions, who knows how many babies, marriages, people falling in love that's that's got to feel uh it's got to it's got to be hard to wrap your head around that or is it it is it is you know i i we also used to have uh uh some baby onesies that we used to send out that said tinder tot on them but uh so no that that was that's what made it made it so special was is that you really were um changing the lives of uh of people in in very meaningful ways and that that

you know that's what it's all about yeah giving back and and making things better for others um i never thought i was going to be a dating coach i just got into this world almost 20 years ago because i was struggling like you i was just like friend zone girls don't like me i'm a dorky nerdy ginger i gotta fix this i was just trying to find love and find some connection and now i think wow all those friend zones all that pain i went through now i can help men occasionally not occasionally but help men get girlfriends and occasionally have babies and families and just it just lights me up.

Well, you're doing good work.

I'm trying.

I thought I'd end with a couple of fun little silly questions.

I thought I'd just name a couple things, maybe some things in the culture, and ask you if you would swipe left on these things or swipe right on these things.

Are you up for it?

Let's do it.

Let's Patrick Mahomes.

Oh, so that's a big swipe up, I guess, actually.

I'm going to cheat.

That's a super like right there.

Yeah, he is the goat.

Well, he's the

of current players.

He's the goat to be.

Exactly.

Swiping left or right on the Detroit Lions chances.

To get there, right for sure.

But I've obviously got

my love that will hopefully stop them.

We've been through a lot of pain, us Lions fans.

I just want that third one.

You can have that third one.

I don't blame you.

I don't blame you.

How about movies real quick?

I'm just going to throw some.

I don't know anything about your movie tastes or music tastes.

I'm just going to throw some names at you.

The Godfather.

I'll swipe right.

Swipe right.

Okay.

The Godfather 3.

Eh.

You know, I might close the app and come back to it later.

How about

The Beatles?

Oh, The Beatles.

I'm a big fan.

Swipe right on that for sure.

Okay.

How about Ringo singing?

Left or right?

I've liked some of his songs singing, sure.

Okay.

Swipe right on Ringo singing.

Yeah.

Okay.

How about

Justin Timberlake?

God, I don't know.

I guess right.

I don't have anything against the guy.

Maybe

don't drink and drive, but you know.

Left on drinking and driving.

There you go.

Right on JT singing.

What about...

You mentioned Disney.

You mentioned going to Disney and you mentioned Disney a couple times.

What Disney movie or park or character would you swipe right on?

Oh, not so much.

Obviously, Mickey Mouse.

Okay.

You know,

don't want to make Minnie jealous, so I'd swipe right on her, too.

Yeah,

I love all the parks, you know, Disneyland, Disney World, and,

you know,

favorite Disney movies, I guess, probably, I don't know, like Beauty and the Beast.

a lot of the Pixar films.

And

yeah,

there's always something good there okay and uh your ultimate swipe right what is your desert island slash ultimate swipe right or swipe up TV show

ultimate show oh god let's see if I was going

one of my favorite dramas uh of all time really is uh one that a lot of people didn't watch is Halton Catch Fire

I remember that show it was on uh during the breaking bad era I believe right it's really good that and maybe parenthood but yeah, comedies I'd go for.

Let's see.

Arrested Development, not the Netflix stuff.

Right.

Coupling, the British version.

The

Parks and Wreck I really liked, too.

Yeah, those are some of my favorites in comedies, I think.

Nice.

Love Parks and Wreck.

I'll give you the final word, Jonathan.

Any final parting words of wisdom or hope?

Or

keep it up, buddy.

Go at it.

For my listener, the introverted, nice guy.

He's struggling on the apps, but he's going at it.

Any final words for this guy?

I think I'll have to do something that's on brand that combines Disney Pixar as well as, well, my work, which is just keep swiping, just keep swiping.

Finding Memo instead of swimming.

Nice.

I love it.

Yeah, I tell my clients it's all about constant, continual, intelligent action, but then adjustments and then new action.

So swipe, if that profile is working, great.

Once you get a really great Tinder profile that converts, you don't have to really do anything else to it.

That's what's so beautiful about online dating.

That's how I met my girlfriend, Jessamine, is I got a great profile.

She swiped right on me.

Here I am.

But until you get there, you got to keep swiping right and

keep swimming as they say in Nemo.

And improving that profile.

Jonathan Bedine, thank you so much for being here.

This is a blast.

Thank you for being here.

Yeah, it was wonderful.

Great.

And thank you so much for listening.

And don't forget, your dream girlfriend, she's out there and she's going to love you, but she's going to have to meet the real authentic you.

So go out there.

Take authentic action.

Carpe datum.

Seize the date.

Until next time.