WEBVTT - Swipe Right: Dating in the Digital Age 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.080 Text with Technology with tech Stuff from hastaff works dot com. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:15.040 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host, 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:19.680 Jonathan Strickland, wishing you a happy Valentine's Day. That's when 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:25.439 this episode is originally airing February eighteen, and because it's 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:30.320 publishing on Valentine's Day, and because I love tech, this 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:36.160 is my Valentine to Tech. Although, to be more specific, 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:37.839 I thought it would be fun to look at an 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.840 app designed to connect people with the possibility of romance 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.880 in their near future. I'm talking about Tender. But first 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:48.120 I thought I would start all this off by actually 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:52.760 relaying a story to you guys about myself. Now, I 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.880 have never really used Tinder, because I've been a married 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.320 man for longer than Tinder has been around. I did 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:03.920 download Tinder, and, as I was explaining to my super 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:07.320 producer Ramsey just a minute ago, uh, I actually called 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:09.840 up my wife as soon as I downloaded it to 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.320 let her know, Hey, sweetie, I'm doing an episode about Tinder. 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.760 So I downloaded Tinder. Please don't get mad or divorce me. 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.160 I haven't really used it, but I did download it 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:25.320 in the interest of, you know, really exploring what this 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:29.600 whole topic is about. But I do have a history 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.400 with technology and falling in love. See when I was 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:38.800 in college, nearly two decades before Tinder would become a reality, 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.720 the Web was just starting to become a thing. At 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:45.840 that time. In fact, I was Internet savvy. I was 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.240 using the Internet on a regular basis, but I had 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.200 very little interest in the Web at that time. That 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:56.200 was a brand new element to the Internet. And sure, 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.680 the Web had graphics and could present things in a 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:01.560 way that didn't make it look like it was just 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:04.559 big blocks of text, which is the way most other 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:09.280 Internet tools presented information. Wasn't very attractive. It was really 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.200 data heavy and probably appealed more to computer scientists than 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:16.200 anyone else. But that's how I got used to the Internet. 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:19.440 And the Web was also kind of slow and cumbersome. 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:23.000 It took a really long time for pictures to download 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.800 on the Web at that point, so to me, it 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:27.679 just seemed like it was a waste of time. You're 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.639 you're waiting a minute and a half for something to load. Nope, 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.040 give me a good tell net client. Any day of 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.520 the week, I would log onto tell net based chat 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.440 rooms and there I would tell jokes to people. I'd 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.080 get into debates, and occasionally I would feed the trolls 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.640 because I was young and stupid. Things are very different 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.240 now because now I'm old and stupid. But anyway, I 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:52.320 guess it would be good to explain what telling it is, 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.760 just in case you are not familiar with it. It 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.079 is a network protocol, and a protocol just means it's 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.280 really a set of rules that a technology follows in 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.359 order for things to work, so that this particular protocol 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.200 allows you to log onto another computer that is connected 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.640 to the same network your computer is on. So it 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.080 doesn't have to be the Internet, it can be an intranet. 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:20.280 The Internet's construction, however, meant that any computer connected to 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.600 it could act as a tell net server if you 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:29.480 wanted it to, and users on their computers would be 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.360 called clients in this relationship, and the clients would log 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.000 onto servers through tell net. That's was That was the 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.560 set of rules that would connect the two, and the 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:45.360 computers would run software that turned them into virtual terminals 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:50.400 for that server. So it's like you're accessing this distant 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:54.280 computer using your actual physical computer right in front of you. 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.360 So your your physical computer is a window into this 0:03:57.560 --> 0:03:59.960 distant computer. And you could do a lot of different 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.680 stuff this way, So it's not just like it was 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.119 used for games or chat rooms, but that's what I 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.560 was using it for. I was using it to access 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:12.360 chat rooms and games and games like multi user dungeons, 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:16.320 things like that. The chat room would be hosted on 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.080 one of those server computers, and by using telling that 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:22.679 I could remotely log into that computer under a user 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.240 account and chat away. Now, typically the way this works 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.880 is you would log in and you would choose a handle, 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.680 and some of the chat rooms would even allow you 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.279 to password protect the handle, so that way you could 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:38.120 register a handle so that it was only yours and 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.920 anytime you saw someone with that name popping up in 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.000 a chat room, you knew who that belonged to, or 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.560 at least you knew the personality that belonged to. Uh. 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:49.480 Some chat rooms didn't have that, which meant that you 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:51.240 might show up and find out that your handle has 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:53.400 already taken. If it was something that was really popular, 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.120 I didn't tend to go to those, and one day 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.240 I found myself on one of these chat rooms chatting 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.720 with a young woman who had charmed me right away 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.279 because she recognized that the handle I was using was 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.960 a reference to classic literature. Specifically, there was a reference 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.800 to one of Victor Hugo's novels, of course, the infamous 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:18.320 Les Miserable. And it turned out this particular young woman 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:23.039 had studied French extensively and even worked at the French 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:27.400 embassy in Washington, d C. We started chatting for a while, 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:31.560 and we found ourselves really enjoying each other's virtual company. 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.240 And this continued for quite some time, and eventually our 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:39.640 chat room conversations gave way to long distance phone calls, 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.839 because back in those days, long distance was still a thing. 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.000 You had to have actually paid to have a phone 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.200 call that was long distance. And eventually this culminated with 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.560 the young woman taking a big chance, and she took 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.880 a train ride down the Eastern seaboard in order to 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:02.520 visit me. And I was smitten, and for some reason, 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.600 so was she. And that's how I met my wife, 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.119 and we've been married for twenty years now. In fact, 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.039 this fall, it will be twenty one years now. I 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.880 tell that story to illustrate how technology can foster connections 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.400 between people who otherwise might never have had the chance 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.800 to even know that the other person existed. Let alone 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.600 fall in love. But in our case, the tech was 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:33.160 just a conduit for conversations. It wasn't intended specifically to 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.560 create these sort of relationships. So what about a technology 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.400 that has been built to do that From the ground up. 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.640 It was all meant to get Cupid's arrow to do 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.840 the whammy on a couple of would be lovers. And 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.120 that's why we're gonna talk about the story of Tender. Now. 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:54.880 I wish I could say the story I'm going to 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:59.040 tell you is just filled with sweetness and flowers and 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.880 chocolates and be dovey stuff, But it's also filled with 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:07.800 some really complicated corporate relationships, a lot of controversy, some 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:13.200 allegations of sexual harassment, and some weird maneuvers at the 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:16.560 executive leadership level that can get a bit confusing at times. 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.679 But let's begin at the beginning. And the story behind 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:23.840 Tinder is actually a bit murky because there were a 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.840 lot of people involved early on with the project, some 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:30.400 of whom would later be acknowledged as co founders of 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.760 the company and some of whom would not be, and 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.160 in at least one case, that contributed to some major 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:41.000 problems for Tinder. Further down, the road. Now, one person 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:45.800 who was certainly a co founder was Sean Rad. Rad 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:49.000 grew up in Los Angeles. He attended private high school 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.640 where his path would cross with another person who would 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.440 become important to Tinder. That would be Justin Matine. And 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:58.720 then Sean Rad would go on to enroll at the 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:03.800 University of Southern California. Really he was studying business development, 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.480 essentially a course in how to be an entrepreneur. While 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:11.400 at USC, Rad ended up running into Justin Mateen again, 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.120 the same guy he had kind of crossed paths within 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.360 high school, and they took a math class in two 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:19.840 thousand four and it was in that class where they 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.240 hit it off. They became best friends. Now, while Goal 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:27.480 going to college, Rad and Matteen would work on projects 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.000 outside of its side gigs. They would have these side 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.680 businesses they were trying to develop partly as part of 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:36.400 their studies. And by projects i'm talking about like real 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.960 startup companies. Rad's first business was one called or gou 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:43.240 O r g o O. It was a communications platform 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.320 that combined elements of email and instant messaging into a 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:51.839 single service. And it didn't exactly just burst out of 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:53.720 the gate. In two thousand four, they got a lot 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:55.760 of interest. There were more than a million people who 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.840 had signed up to be notified when the service would 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.440 go online, and by two thousand and eight it was 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.920 still in pre release mode. Ultimately, according to Rad in 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.880 an article in Business Insider, it got quote wrapped up 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.800 in some IP issues with another company and unfortunately had 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.520 to shut down end quote. But the idea itself wasn't 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:21.920 at fault necessarily. Now, both Rad and Mattine continued to 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:26.000 work on projects as they attended USC In two thousand 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:29.440 and seven, Rad convinced Matine to give up his beloved 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:33.199 BlackBerry phone and switched to an iPhone. Remember, the iPhone 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.160 was brand new in that time, but Rad saw that 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.240 the iPhone was going to usher in a new era 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.240 of computing, computing, and and and a little bit later, 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:45.679 he became convinced that mobile devices would be the evolution 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:48.400 of computing and more people wouldn't be moving away from 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.320 classic desktop and laptop machines. In fact, he went so 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:56.080 far as to say that mobile devices would completely eradicate 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.680 traditional computers, which hasn't happened yet, but we certainly have 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:04.200 seen the mobile devices have heavily impacted things like web traffic, 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.079 and more and more of a website's traffic tends to 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.959 come from mobile devices than from your traditional laptops and desktops. 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:15.120 In September two eight, at the beginning of his senior 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.680 year at USC, Rad dropped out of college. He was 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.640 going to focus completely on developing business ideas, and the 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:26.559 following year he launched a new service called ad dot 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.960 l Y or Addlee. Now, this was a platform upon 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:35.200 which celebrities could endorse products and services in return for 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.640 a fee. So the idea was that addle could connect 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.800 brands with celebrities. So let's say that you've got a 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:45.920 deodorant and you want Bruce Campbell to be the guy 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:48.680 talking about your deodorant, you might use a service like 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:53.160 ad Lee in order to get that connection. So, in 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:57.280 other words, Rad was all about connecting influencers with brands, 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.440 and it took a couple of years to really get moving. 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:02.560 And at that time, Rad was kind of fed up 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.360 with dealing with two things that I think would try 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.880 anyone's patients, and those two things would be celebrities and advertisers. 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.720 He decided he would sell his stake and then free 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:17.000 himself up to go do something else, and he would 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.280 get hired on at an incubator company towards the end 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.520 of two thousand eleven beginning of two thousand twelve. And 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:26.520 in case you're curious, an incubator company is essentially an 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.080 organization that exists to give people the opportunity to develop 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:34.760 and launch startup businesses. In return, typically the incubator company 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:39.440 has a portion of ownership in whatever businesses are launched 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:43.720 out of it. This particular incubator company was called Hatch Labs, 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:48.520 and hatch Labs is one small part of an enormous 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:53.160 empire overseen by a company called Interactive Core, which is 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.120 better known as I a C. And let's just talk 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.559 about I a C for a moment. I a C 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.880 started off as a shell corporation, which means it didn't 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:07.120 have any business operations of its own or real assets. 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.040 So this is a company that doesn't have office space, 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:14.400 it doesn't have office supplies, doesn't have employees. Instead, shell 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.560 corporations can be used to do stuff like act in 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.839 place of another entity for the purposes of large business transactions, 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:25.560 which sometimes can be shady, But there are lots of 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:30.080 legal uses for shell corporations, so it's not just something 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.400 that is done to move money around. Sometimes there are 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.439 real legitimate purposes for it. For example, a startup might 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.080 use a shell corporation in order to raise funds. So 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:43.960 you might have a startup that has a fun quirky name, 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:46.920 but it might be a fun quirky name that isn't 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.640 really the best to get investors on board. So you 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:54.360 have a shell corporation that's really handling the fundraising aspect 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:56.560 of things, and all that money ends up going to 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:00.000 the startup company. In this case, this particular startup company 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.240 was created on behalf of the Home Shopping Network. It 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:07.640 was called Silver King Broadcasting Company and it was used 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:10.960 to purchase regional television stations in the nineteen eighties in 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.920 an effort to expand the Home Shopping networks viewer base. 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.360 Now that shell corporation began to buy up other properties, 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:22.319 and at first it was local TV stations, but then 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.040 it was a majority stake in the Home Shopping Network 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:28.200 itself and at that point it changed its name to 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:33.000 h s N Incorporated. The company continued buying up other properties, 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:37.880 mostly media companies, including a movie studio called Savoy Pictures 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:42.120 and that owned four Fox affiliate TV stations, and then 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:48.960 in the late nineties, the company bought Ticketmaster Group. Hs 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.480 N bought the TV side of Universal Studios all of 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:57.360 their television assets for about four billion dollars a suite 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.800 sum I would say. At that point, a company's name 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:04.880 changed to USA Networks Incorporated, and in the two thousand's 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:07.520 the company would end up selling off many of its 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.280 traditional TV production and broadcast companies and instead start to 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:17.080 invest in online acquisitions, web based acquisitions, and app based acquisitions. 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.920 And that brings our story in connection with some companies 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.280 I've talked about in recent episodes of Tech stuff like 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.840 the Vendi Universal Entertainment that was the company that ended 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:30.120 up taking over some of those divested TV properties. USA 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:34.840 Network purchased Expedia and a few other websites and online 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.800 companies and change its name a couple more times, ending 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.480 with Interactive Core in two thousand three and I a 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.000 C in two thousand four. Now I a C kept 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:48.440 acquiring other companies, including stuff like Hotwire, dot Com, lending Tree, 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:54.720 ask Jeeves, trip Advisor, College, Humor Dictionary, dot Com, Urban Spoon, 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.680 and more. So. It's almost like a shark. It was 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:00.200 made to eat other companies, or at least bring them 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.440 under the fold. Now, one of the properties I a 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.480 C owned was Match dot Com, which as a leading 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:12.320 online dating service, and that would also become the centerpiece 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.480 of a division within I a C. Called Match Group 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:17.880 ended up being kind of spun out as its own thing. 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.840 So you have the umbrella company I a C. And 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:25.040 a subsidiary company called match Group, which also oversees a 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:29.000 bunch of other smaller companies, including Match dot Com, and 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.720 ultimately this would become the home to Tinder. Tender would 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:35.960 become part of match Group, and Match Group would become 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.520 its own publicly traded company in two thousand fifteen. But 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.040 that's jumping ahead of the story at this point. The 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.720 important thing to note is that Rad went to work 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.920 for hatch Labs, the incubator owned by I a C. 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.760 And another company also had steak in hatch Labs. That 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.200 was Extreme Labs, which would later be acquired by a 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.040 company called Pivotal in two thousand thirteen. I told you 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.240 this was going to get complicated. So the reason it's 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.840 important to talk about all those companies behind hatch Labs 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:06.440 is that they had a stake of ownership in the 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:08.920 businesses that launched out of the incubator. So it's not 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.000 just hey, these two big companies own this place and 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:15.000 Tender came out of that place. It's these companies not 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.200 only gave Tender a place to develop the app, but 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:22.600 also they owned part of the business. Now, Rad's first 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.080 gig over at Hatched Labs was to work on a 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:30.120 location based service, an app called Cardify c A R 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.160 D I F Y that was sort of a customer 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.160 loyalty program that was location based, kind of like a 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:38.920 punch card you would get for buying coffee at that 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.280 cool place where they draw the cute bird in the phone. 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:44.400 I love that place anyway. Cardify was all about working 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.120 with smartphones to leverage their ability to tie a person 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.200 to a general location. Now, this was in two thousand eleven, 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.960 when location based services were really just starting to take off. 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:56.440 So Rad would end up working with a guy named 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:00.360 Jonathan Baddeen on this project, and Baden would on to 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:04.120 become another important person in the birth of Tender. Meanwhile, 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:08.960 Justin Mattine had co developed a couple of companies called 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:11.920 cover Canvas and Site Canvas, so he was busy as well. 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:14.040 He was not part of Hatched Labs at this point, 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.000 but he was still friends with Seawan Rad. In early 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.800 two thousand twelve, hatch Labs had a hackathon, which is 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.240 an event in which creators are given time and resources 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.880 to put together something you now. Sean Rad was paired 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.720 with another guy named Joe Munrios, a developer who had 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.320 been looking at an app that could match people to 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.840 local businesses that might interest them. So, in other words, 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.240 if you're walking down the street and you've got a 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.080 history of buying hats and there's a really cool hat shop, 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.920 you might get a little notification saying, hey, hats are 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:49.080 us is right around the corner. Maybe you should stick 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:50.800 your head in there and take it out with a 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.720 hat on it. Well, together, Rad and Munio's started to 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.240 brainstorm what they were gonna do for this hackathon, and 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.280 they thought they might create a dating app does signed 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.000 to match people up, and they decided to put together 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.080 a rough prototype, which was the earliest build of what 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.560 would eventually become Tender. I'll talk a little bit about 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.679 what that prototype was and their ideas behind it in 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.159 just a minute, but first let's take a quick break 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:26.080 to thank our sponsor. Al Right, around this time, the 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.440 app still didn't have a name, and it certainly wasn't 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:32.480 gonna be called Tender. The working name was Matchbox, and 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.720 according to a presentation deck that Rad and Munio's put 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.680 together in February twelve, which I found on a lengthy 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:45.080 tech Crunch article, it was subtitled The Flirting Game, and 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.239 the presentation suggested that Matchbox could take the place of 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.480 the singles experience of going to bars to meet people. 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:53.840 So instead of trying to muster up the courage to 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.280 approach a stranger in a bar and potentially face rejection 0:18:57.400 --> 0:18:59.879 right then and there, the app would allow people with 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:04.280 then the general area to view profile photos of each other, 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.000 and at that point you could express interest in the 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.000 photo or you could choose to dismiss it to pass 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.760 on it. Though there was no swiping at this stage, 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.199 that was not part of the app yet. You just 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:17.439 would use a little buttons on the app to indicate 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:21.000 whether you were interested or now you're not so interested 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:25.440 in that person. If both parties showed interest in each other, 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.440 the app would then allow them to send messages back 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:31.760 and forth, but if one of the two did not 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:36.000 express interest, communication channels would remain closed, and in fact, 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:40.439 the person who didn't say anything didn't accept or didn't 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.560 swipe right, as the case would be later on, would 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.879 never even know about the second person, So it was 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:51.440 meant to only allow communication between people who had jointly 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.080 expressed interest in each other. According to the presentation, the 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:58.320 app would base location data off of WiFi signals rather 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:02.440 than GPS coordinates and thus be hyperlocal, and the app 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:05.360 could be designed to narrow searches based off of common 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.520 interests or friends that both parties might have in common. 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:12.560 Matchbox would become a project at Hatch Labs, although Sean 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.680 Rad was still officially working on Cardify, he just found 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.320 himself spending a lot of time thinking about this pet project, 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:24.040 then really focusing on Cardify, which he felt at that 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:26.920 point had pretty much gone as far as he could 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:31.399 take it before it would end up becoming an official app. Also, 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.960 they were really concerned with making this a gamified experience, 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:39.960 having this this sensation of playing a game where you're 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.920 choosing yes or no. This is kind of based off 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.400 of a website called hot or Not where you would 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.640 rate people's appearance based on a photo that was uploaded 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.320 to the site, and it gives you that really quick 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.560 feeling of I don't know pleasure for being able to 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:01.240 judge someone really on on the spot, just based upon 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:06.040 their appearance primarily, and they thought that by gamifying this 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.199 it would it would end up inspiring more engagement, and 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:12.679 if you were able to monetize that, whether by serving 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.800 ads up against it or some other method, then you 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:19.080 could make money off of this. So in March two 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:23.920 thousand twelve, Jonathan Baden and Chris Golsinski would join Hatch 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:27.120 Labs and begin working on the design for Cardify, and 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.920 by extension, they joined the Matchbox team. They used a 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.600 workspace that was owned by Justin Mateen, and that's because 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.600 the Hatch Labs office that was in Los Angeles had 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.920 limited resources. Hatch Labs has a couple of different locations. 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.000 The one in New York was reportedly really really well 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:46.200 decked out, but the one in l A not so much. 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:50.560 So they decided to use a space that Justin Matteen had. 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:52.960 Even though Matine at this point was not still not 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:55.840 part of Hatch Labs, he was just Sean Rad's really 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.800 good friend, and so he let them have use of 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:03.280 the space as sort of a favor to two Sean. Now. 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:06.800 In May of two thousand twelve, Whitney Wolf would join 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:10.600 Hatch Labs and at some point between May and September 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:13.199 two thousand twelve, she would begin to work with the 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:18.000 Cardify and Matchbox teams, starting with Cardify and then transitioning 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:21.200 over to Matchbox. As it turns out, she would play 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:25.880 a significant role in tenders history now. Sean Rad presented 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.280 Cardify to an event called tech Crunch Disrupt in New 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:32.560 York City, which is an event that helps fledgling startups 0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:37.119 get more attention potentially investment support. Rad was hoping to 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:40.280 find some partners for the app and entice shop owners 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:43.840 to join the service because again, Cardify was a shop 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:47.320 loyalty program, so he needed the buy in of merchants 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:51.480 and vendors to create value for users. Otherwise, if you're 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:53.280 a user and you're signing up for the service and 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:57.480 no shopkeepers are on board, there's nothing to be loyal too. 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.840 So they also submitted Cardify to the iPhone app Store. 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:04.879 It was ready to go. Now is at this point 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:07.760 that they hit a little bit of a snarl. Apple's 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:11.520 app approval process is something that has always been to 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:16.480 some extent shrouded in mystery. Apple executives always say they 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:18.840 want to make sure that the apps in the iPhone 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:21.879 Store provide a good experience and are of value to 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:27.199 iPhone owners. App developers sometimes have a different point of 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:30.320 view on this. There have been complaints that sometimes work 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:34.119 can be rejected for seemingly arbitrary reasons, or sometimes without 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:37.960 any real reasoning at all, and it could be infuriating. 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:40.440 Sometimes it feels like it just depends on what time 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:44.320 of day Apple is reviewing your app. Cardify was stuck 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:47.080 in an approvals process that was dragging on for a 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:49.600 few weeks and that was a bit too long for 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:51.960