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In 2014, CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd founded whats now become one of the most popular dating apps on the market: Bumble. Herd, also a co-founder and former Vice President of Marketing for Tinder, left the company due to growing tensions with other executives. Since launch, Bumble has accrued over 66 million users with over 90,000 new users every day, who make free dating sites over 23 million matches per week. To date, over 1.1 billion first matches have been made.
While Bumble is technically a “people-meeting service,” allowing users to specify that they are interested in making friends or networking for business purposes, the bulk of its users are looking for romantic prospects.
How Does Bumble Work for Guys?
How much value you get out of Bumble, assuming you’re using it for dating reasons, will depend on two key factors: how much effort you are willing to put into creating a clever and inviting profile and how well you can engage with the women you’ve matched with.
To help you in both of those areas, we’ve compiled a comprehensive guide to getting the most out of your Bumble experience, including step-by-step instructions on how to create a Bumble account and use the app, tips on crafting the perfect profile, and advice on navigating Bumble’s unique rules around messaging women to maximize your chances of landing yourself a date.
Crafting Your Bumble Profile
In the beginning, one could only sign into Bumble using Facebook, but this mandate has changed. Now, you can simply sign up with a phone number as well, where you simply input the code that is texted to you. If you sign in via Facebook, the app will ask you to provide access to your public profile, friend list, relationships, birthday, work and educational history, current city, photos, likes and email address – a long list aimed at helping you to build a detailed profile later on – but you can edit the information that you provide.
Once your account is created, you are greeted with the Bumble Pledge. Agreeing to the Pledge is your way of vowing that you will uphold the apps values both online and off. This immediately distinguishes Bumble from other dating apps and sets the tone that its creators have carefully honed: this is a non-sleazy, woman-friendly dating app unlike anything else on the market. You will then be asked to confirm whether you’re looking for dates, new friends or networking opportunities, and Bumble will only show your profile to people on the app for the same purposes you are. This is a strong feature that avoids some of the pitfalls of other dating apps such as Tinder, where it can be frustrating to match with cute singles only to find out that they strictly looking for friends only.
Once you’ve selected the dating option and confirm that you’re looking for women or men, you’re almost ready to start swiping through the profiles of other users. There’s not much point starting the swiping process until you’ve created an engaging profile, though: your chances of racking up matches with a single photo and no bio are very slim, and women are going to want to know some basic information about you before they swipe right.
Picking Your Bumble Profile Photos
Bumble allows you to upload up to six photos, and we’d recommend you select a range of shots to showcase yourself as a full package: a close-up shot of your face or two (feel free to use a selfie), a couple of full-body shots, and some pictures that reveal your personality, such as shots of you hanging out with friends, playing sport, or holding your beloved French bulldog. Your profile pictures should be well-lit and chosen with care, showing you at your best – that means no mirror selfies!
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