GLOBAL VENTURING - Best Nights VC, Mast-Jägermeister's venture arm, targets startups that bridge the gap between online interactions and real-world connections. Their portfolio includes Thursday, a dating app that operates exclusively on Thursdays to encourage real-life meetups and other social platforms like Lex and 222 that foster meaningful in-person interactions.
by Fernando Moncada Rivera
See full article at Global Venturing
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TECH CRUNCH - Thursday, the dating app, which is available only on Thursdays, has expanded to San Francisco. By limiting access to one day a week, it encourages users to schedule real-life meetups promptly, addressing "swiping fatigue". Thursday limits matches to 10 per day, encouraging serious dating efforts. Users can increase this cap with a subscription. The app also organizes in-person singles events through Thursday Event. Founded in 2021, Thursday is available in six countries, including the U.S., U.K., and Australia, and plans to reach 100 cities by the end of 2024.
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ABC7 - Ashley Coates, the Chicago host for the dating app "Thursday," stopped by ABC 7 Eyewitness News to discuss the app and its unique approach to dating. She shared insights about the app's weekly events, which are designed for those tired of traditional dating apps, held every Thursday.
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THE TIMES - Dating apps face challenges after years of growth, with declining user numbers and management changes. Match Group's value dropped from over $40B in 2021 to $7.8B. The number of paying customers is declining by 9% in its sixth consecutive quarter. At Bumble, Lidiane Jones replaced Whitney Wolfe Herd as CEO in January. She has already laid off 350 employees. Shares in Bumble have fallen by ~30% over the past 12 months and the company is now worth $2B, down from the $13B shortly after the 2021 IPO. Mark Brooks, the CEO of Courtland Brooks, a business that provides consultancy services to online dating companies, said that a proportion of users were willing to pay a premium for dating apps. "They're leaving a lot of money on the table," he said. "There's a small portion of people who are willing to pay considerably more. Some people don’t have time, they just want dates, so the more you can help them with that, they'll pay disproportionate amounts and spend $500 a month, perhaps, which is what Tinder is playing with right now." Acquisitions also have a role to play in helping Match to grow. Hinge, bought by the group in 2018, has been an important investment. It describes itself as the app that is "designed to be deleted". Brooks said: "Theoretically they wouldn't want users to delete the apps because they're not going to get paid any more, but they’re conveying that it's the app for a high-quality experience. Hinge is important to Match. It offsets some of the decline in user weakness for Tinder. But it is still small relative to the size of the group." Others in the industry are also hoping to shake up the market. One such is Thursday. Founded by Matt McNeill Love and George Rawlings, the dating app, as its name suggests, works only on Thursdays, when it hosts singles events in various locations in cities such as London and New York.
by Emma Taggart
See full article at The Times
See the top news on Match Group See the top news on Tinder
See the top news on Bumble See the top news on Hinge
See the top news on Thursday
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NEWS.COM.AU - A car graffitied with messages like 'cheater' and 'scum' in Sydney turned out to be a promotional stunt by the dating app Thursday. Initially causing online speculation about a revenge act, the company later revealed on Instagram that it was a creative attempt to grab attention due to their limited marketing budget. The stunt, involving a car owned by Thursday's city representative, aimed to promote Thursday Events in Sydney, a concept where singles meet in person. Despite some praise, the marketing tactic faced criticism for associating the dating app with negative themes like cheating and vandalism, leaving many confused and unimpressed. The controversy highlights the fine line between innovative marketing and potential brand damage.
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CITYAM - The CEO of the dating app Thursday, George Rawlings, apologized following backlash over a LinkedIn post about layoffs at his company. In the deleted post, he stated that 70% of the staff pictured had been made redundant, yet claimed Thursday was stronger than ever. His post, perceived as insensitive, drew mixed reactions. The app, known for its once-a-week live feature and pop-up events in London and New York, had raised £2.5m in seed funding. Rawlings acknowledged the post did not convey his intended message and expressed a commitment to rectify this and do right by his team.
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OPW - Thursday, initially renowned for its unique dating app that only activated on Thursdays, is taking a bold new direction. Thursday is moving beyond being just an app or an event organizer. Transitioning from digital matchmaking, Thursday is now set to launch a groundbreaking concept: The Singles Bar. The company's plan is to have a dedicated place in every major city in the world where singles from Hinge, Bumble, Tinder, pearº hang out on a Thursday night for IRL human connection.
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LINKEDIN - Six months ago, the founder of dating app, Thursday, initiated an experiment called pearº. The idea was to eliminate the need for dating apps by introducing green rings that singles could wear to indicate their openness to real-world connections. Surprisingly, it worked better than expected, with numerous success stories pouring in. While some questioned if this move was counterintuitive, it turns out pearº has paved the way for Thursday's expansion into 115 cities across four continents by the end of the year. Sometimes, creating competition can lead to growth.
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LINKEDIN - Matthew McNeill Love, the COO and Co-founder of dating app Thursday, recently opened up about why the company has been less active on social media. Despite a challenging year marked by hesitant venture capital and economic downturn, Thursday decided to go inward, focusing on improving its product rather than scaling. Last February, the team concentrated on strengthening their brand, refining user experience, and setting a clearer path to scalability, all part of their next phase dubbed "Thursday 2.0." During this time, the app reached a significant milestone of 1M downloads. The company also developed another singles brand with global reach, expanding its presence in markets like the US, UK, EU, Australia, and Canada. Love concluded by hinting at exciting developments in the coming months.
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INSIDEHOOK - Dating apps operate with different business models that could significantly impact user experiences. While apps like Hinge market themselves as platforms designed to find lasting connections, others like Tinder and Bumble have focused on optimizing user engagement. Apps like Thursday have sought to limit user interaction to reduce the gamification effect. Despite the surface altruism, these businesses are driven by a profit motive, focusing on user retention and regular engagement to maintain an active user base. This has sparked speculation about whether these apps, incentivized to keep users active, could unintentionally prolong the quest for meaningful connections. Each app caters to a unique demographic and promotes a distinct user experience, potentially affecting the user's dating life.
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LINKEDIN - The dating app Thursday has announced a ski trip for 1000 singles to France on April 15 - 22nd, 2023. ~4K people said they want to come in 24 hours, according to the LinkedIn post of Thursday's co-founder & CEO George Rawlings. Singles can register here. Over 4000 people said they want to come in 24 hours. All registrations will also be entered into a prize draw to win two free places on the trip.
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TECH BUZZ IRELAND - MoneyTransfers.com has analyzed 15 different dating apps to identify which apps share sensitive information with third parties. 67% of dating apps collect users' personal data to share with third parties. Badoo and Her were discovered to be the dating apps that share most of their users' personal data with third parties (35%), including everything from location, contact information, identifiers (IP address and cookies), and usage data. In joint second place were eharmony and Grindr, and in third place came Tinder and PlentyOfFish. There were 5 apps that did not collect any of their users' personal data to share with third parties. These apps were Hinge, Thursday, Flava, Once and Raya.
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BUSINESS LEADER - Dating app Thursday only works one day a week.
Q: Can you tell us how it works?
A: If you sign-in on a Wednesday, it will tell you to go away. Once Thursday comes around, the app will come to life and show you people that want to go on a date.
Q: Do you have any concerns about the longevity of the idea?
A: Since we launched in Oct 2021, we've hosted 322 events and every week, without fail, they sell out. The number of users increases month-on-month and we're looking at new territories, both in the UK and abroad.
Q: How have you funded the business so far?
A: Our first round was on Crowdcube in 2018. We also raised a round of £100K from friends and family. Then in lockdown, we raised an additional £350K through angel investors and following this, we had our official seed round for £2.5M last summer.
Q: What have you learned through your fundraising?
A: Raise what you need, rather than what you can.
Q: When you're raising, what are the expectations from those funding you?
A: We were told to hire lots of senior people, as fast as we could. But it would have been expensive, and we would have run out of money. We've been very careful about hiring and taken the process very slowly.
Q: What is the most outlandish thing you have done to raise money?
A: We held up a sign outside of a Lamborghini garage asking if anybody rich wanted to give us some money. We raised ~ £20K that day.
Q: How do you organise your marketing?
A: We have a team of eleven in total, but we don't have a marketing department. It is a case of us all getting together and discussing ideas, and no idea is stupid.
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THE CONVERSATION - People are eager to meet in person, and there are apps that focus on bringing people together in person. One of these is Thursday. It is live just once a week (on Thursdays) and gives users 24 hours to arrange a date. This cuts down on the onerous swiping and messaging. Thursday also hosts in-person events. Using dating apps does take time and effort. A large survey by Badoo found that millennials spend on average 90 minutes a day looking for a date, by swiping, liking, matching and chatting. In 2016, Hinge's data found that only one in 500 swipes resulted in phone numbers being exchanged. This may lead to online dating fatigue.
by Martin Graff
See full article at The Conversation
See the top news on Thursday
See the top news on Badoo
See the top news on Hinge
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BBC - George Rawlings, 29, wanted to make dating less complicated and launched Thursday from his bedroom last year. He hoped by narrowing the app to one day it would give users a sense of urgency to organise a date straight away and cut down on small talk. It has been downloaded 750K times in the last nine months. Mr Rawlings says he chose Thursdays because his previous dating app - Honeypot - peaked on a Thursday, with about double the number of people logging on compared to other days.
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