Dating app maker Bumble is rethinking its vision for the future after disappointing results and announcing major layoffs that will cut about 350 people, or a third of its workforce. In addition to plans to revamp the app for Gen Z, the company's new CEO, former Slack CEO Lydiaan Jones, will focus on building a social network for the Bumble BFF friend-finding business.
Currently, Bumble's BFF side of the app uses the same swipe-to-like mechanism used on the dating side, giving users a profile that they can choose to match or pass. will be displayed.
Jones doesn't think the format is working well for the company, despite growing customer demand for apps that help find friendships and platonic connections.
“Frankly, we have been slow to realize this broader vision at Bumble BFF so far,” she told investors during a Q4 2023 earnings call on Tuesday. “Going forward, we are focused on reinvesting to accelerate Bumble for Friends’ bolder strategy, which is about building a community of like-minded people seeking real-life connections. It focuses on building fair and safe friendships between people,” Jones added.
Under Mr. Jones, Bumble is redirecting its (currently more limited) resources to areas where it sees growth opportunities, including the use of AI in the dating app space, as has competitor Match. However, we also plan to innovate in the area of finding friends. Category with BFF.
The CEO noted that the current BFF product has a small but strong following. This is because BFF uses the same one-on-one matching paradigm for friendship that Bumble uses for dating.
But this limits BFFs to only those who are comfortable with that paradigm, Jones explained. In other words, while this may work for dating, it doesn't work so well for friendships.
Instead, the new BFF will focus on helping users connect with each other in a new way, one that's more akin to social networking apps.
“…What we want to do is actually shift to that paradigm and [make] Learn more about building and finding a community on Bumble For Friends.This is exactly what our customers are saying [us] — they love being a part of our platform,” Jones said. But she added: “It's really hard to connect with each other. So we're really going to accelerate our investments in that area.”
The company has not yet revealed a roadmap for changes to BFF, but some previous testing and internal product development may provide some ideas.
Back in August 2022, Bumble was spotted experimenting with a new social networking feature called “Hive.” This allowed users to connect via communities and included support for group chats, polls, video calls, and more. Bumble explained Hive to investors during its second-quarter earnings call, saying it would focus on helping people find platonic connections through small communities. The product was also alpha tested in markets such as Toronto, where users created thousands of communities known as “Hives.”
Image credits: Bumblehive via Watchful
However, Hive wasn't released to all Bumble users, and BFF remains a friendship-focused version of the dating app format, with users' profiles, photos, and profile displayed on their profile page. , users can swipe to like and match.
Given Bumble's layoffs, it's unlikely that the company will build a new BFF format from scratch, but will instead push Hive to become publicly available as a way to revamp its friend-finding product.
However, it remains to be seen whether Bumble can actually leverage this effort from a revenue perspective. Dating app users are willing to pay for perks and subscriptions to find better love, but those looking for friendship have Facebook groups, Meetups, organizations, and local communities to meet real people. There are many other free options, such as the service . world. That could limit BFF's ability to monetize, much like Bumble's dating products.
“We will continue to bring along the millions of customers currently in our locations who are eager to remain a part of our platform,” said BFF's Jones. “We look forward to sharing more details about our company-wide strategy and product roadmap in the coming months.”