Justin McLeod Talks Hinge’s New Data Science Division
Hinge Founder and CEO Justin McLeod was recently interviewed by Mashable, where he discussed the app’s new data venture, Hinge Lab, and how it is going to help get people into real-world relationships.
Over at the division, data scientists extract information from successful couples, before a research team conducts analyses to see whether there is any valuable insight to be gained from their matching. This could include facts about how often the users were using the app, and how many messages they sent.
McLeod described the new department as being like a personal trainer for the dating world.
“Hinge Lab is essentially going around looking at the buff people in the gym and being like, ‘Okay, well what are they doing differently than the guys and how do we share those learnings with everyone so that everyone can enjoy that success.’”
The findings, such as 38% of men not being confident turning in-app conversations into dates, are being turned into marketing materials and dating advice for singles.
Hinge is proud to promote that a date is set up every four seconds on its service, and that 75% of first dates turn into a second. McLeod said its new ‘Designed to be Deleted’ tagline shouldn’t be considered a rebrand, but rather a “better articulation of what we’re all about”.
He also took the opportunity to defend the race and ethnicity filter on Hinge, which many critics have claimed encourages racism by allowing users to be segregated.
He revealed it’s actually used by many minority members to find people of the same ethnicity, providing an alternative to just browsing singles from the “majority culture”.
Read the full interview here.