Hinge wants to be Match.com for the next generation

Hinge is taking a hard left swipe at its own business model. The dating app relaunched Tuesday from a free swiping app into a members-only company for $7 per month.

Instead of competing with the likes of Tinder, Bumble and Happn (to name a few), Hinge has rebranded itself as the Match.com or eHarmony for the next generation. While some apps define themselves as a way to “meet people” or “discover people,” Hinge is now a relationships app.

“When I started Hinge in 2011, there were no other dating apps period. It felt like at this point, there were so many swipey, game apps, and we were just another one,” Justin McLeod, founder and CEO, told Mashable. “There was a moment when we started reflecting, ‘Is this really what we set out to build?'”

A few years back, Hinge had a niche in the industry. The app only matched users with friends of friends (via Facebook), but it didn’t take long for competitors to adopt that feature. Less than a year later, Tinder added common connections. Hinge also prominently displayed users’ work and education, which other apps have added.

McLeod said his team of 20 decided to build something new last December. The team was motivated, in part, by a Vanity Fair piece titled Tinder and the Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse” that portrayed the industry as crowded and pushing a toxic culture, without love and romance.

In January, Hinge surveyed its users in an attempt to understand what the community would want out of a new dating app. Hinge users categorized the app as a 7 on a scale from 1 (hook-up oriented) to 10 (long-term relationship oriented). Hinge already positioned itself as a place for people looking for real relationships, but 70 percent of users said they were interested in a dating app experience more serious than Hinge.

Hinge is attempting to find a new niche as a more mobile-friendly, less expensive version of Match and eHarmony.

Andy Dunn, CEO of men’s apparel company Bonobos, who is also an investor in Hinge and a board member, said he is not wary of the app’s pivot.

“They evolved their strategy and product toward the hole they discovered in the market: a real relationship app for the social, mobile era,” Dunn wrote to Mashable in an emailed statement. “This could be big.”

The new Hinge

To this end, Hinge rebuilt itself as a paid experience. Hinge users must now pay $7 per month to be a part of the community. The app will offer a three-month trial to new and old users.

In addition to charging a fee which McLeod said helps users consider the app to be more of a commitment Hinge has been completely redesigned to prioritize people and connections. Prior to the redesign, Hinge profiles began with a large photo and displayed users’ name, age, city, job and mutual friends. Users could click more to see their school and other photos.

Now, Hinge profiles begin with a large image but do not immediately show the user’s age, name, city or any other demographic information first. Instead, users fill in a prompt for an interesting fact such as “unusual skills” or “Halloween costume.”

A user’s profile, which Hinge dubs as a user’s story, is now scrollable. The next module shows demographic information and then users can select other photos and prompts. At each module of the story, users can like or send a message tied to a specific photo.

McLeod likens the experience to Facebook’s Instagram.

“Instead of just browsing through cards you browse through people’s stories kind of like Instagram,” McLeod said. “The first thing you see is them in their own words.”

The messaging and connecting experience is unlike other dating apps, such as Tinder, where users are only able to message after they mutually swipe to the right. On Hinge, users can receive messages and see connections from anyone who expresses interest.

The Hinge app opens to this connections and messaging page, rather than new profiles.

Connections do not expire, unlike on previous versions of Hinge.

“We wanted to get rid of all those silly games the timers, the super likes. What we learned with this mechanism is people are a lot more selective in terms of who they like,” McLeod said.

During the testing period, Hinge found that connections turn into full conversations at five times the rate of the previous app and phone numbers exchanged seven times as often.

Unhinging the business

For the last two weeks, Hinge has emailed its users repeatedly to let them know of the changes ahead as well as teasing a new model on social media.

McLeod said he is confident that users will be interested in moving to the experience, given the company’s research. If they do not like new Hinge, “there are lots of free alternative hookup apps,” he said.

Hinge declined to disclose how many users it has but McLeod described the launch date as “nontrivial” given that “on day one, hundreds of thousands of people” will be using the app.

A real relationship app for the social, mobile era

Hinge raised $20.6 million in venture capital funding, most recently in $12 million in a Series A, led by Shasta Ventures, that closed in December 2014. The app had yet to generate significantly revenue, not previously offering advertising or paid experiences.

Mark Brooks, an online dating app consultant, told Mashable that Hinge’s team was smart to no longer compete with Tinder and other free apps.

“There’s not much point in being a copycat.They need to be known for something, or they will end up not being known for anything,” Brooks wrote in an email. “Going serious and paid is a bold move, and a good move.They won’t see as high traffic as Tinder, but I think they will see revenues, and users interested in meaningful relationships.”

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