Dating app Bumble will no longer require women to make the first move

The Bumble logo shown on a smartphone. (Gabby Jones / Bloomberg / Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

New York — Ten years after creating a new model for dating apps with its “women make the first move” feature, Bumble is opening the door to men starting conversations on its platform.

Bumble is rolling out a new feature called “opening moves” that will let female users set a prompt to which male suitors can respond to initiate a conversation. The feature reverses a longstanding requirement by the app that women send the first message to their matches, which Bumble said gave women more power over their dating lives.

The new feature is part of a larger relaunch of the app announced Tuesday by new CEO Lidiane Jones, who took over the top job from founder Whitney Wolfe Herd earlier this year. The move comes as dating apps broadly are working to maintain their relevance as some singles have become burnt out on online dating and are seeking more in-person connections.

Jones sees the Bumble redesign as a way to help the platform meet that moment.

“We’re seeing a greater need for authentic human connections,” Jones told CNN in an interview ahead of the launch. “I don’t anticipate that the number of people using online dating is going to go down, quite the opposite, but there is a higher bar … So we’re taking it as a great call to action to center ourselves on our mission.”

The new “opening moves” feature is one way Jones says Bumble is evolving while staying true to its original mission of empowering women. Now, women users will have the option to continue initiating conversations with matches or to set an opening move — for example, a question about a potential match’s dream dinner guest — that would indicate they want their match to reach out first. (For non-binary users or those seeking same-gender matches, either person can set and respond to an opening move.)

Bumble’s relaunch also includes updated “dating intentions” badges that allow users to indicate on their profiles whether they’re looking for, say, a “life partner” or simply “fun, casual dates.” Bumble is now also requiring users to include more photos on their bios. And the app will highlight common interests at the top of potential matches’ profiles in an effort to connect people with more compatible partners.

The changes could be key to returning Bumble — which also owns dating apps Badoo and Fruitz — to profitability after it posted a US$1.9 million net loss last year. The company’s share price has also plummeted 86 per cent from its initial public offering in February 2021.

Wall Street analysts expect Bumble to post a US$12 million profit when it reports earnings for the first three months of this year on May 8, up from a US$2.3 million loss during the year-ago quarter. The company’s number of paying users is also expected to tick up 14 per cent to more than 3.9 million.

“We’re very fortunate to have very healthy financials to be able to invest in growth for the company, and still deliver profitability for our shareholders,” Jones said. “We’re at a really great inflection point of, we have enough scale and we also have a lot of room to grow ahead, where we can balance both of those goals together.”