Match Group's Sam Yagan wants to join your date
BEVERLY HILLS — Sam Yagan’s goal: to go out on a date with you.
Well, not personally — just digitally.
As the Vice Chair of the Match Group (MTCH), which owns many of the top-used dating apps, including Tinder, Match, OKCupid and Plenty of Fish, Yagan looks to bring the apps to the next level. That is, feedback about your dates.
“The data will be transformative,” Yagan told Paste BN, in an exclusive #TalkingTech video and audio interview on Monday. “As we get to kind of go on that date with you, and be part of your life as you carry the apps with you, we will learn a lot more, and do a better job of matching you up.”
What kind of information is he looking for?
“Well, the first step is actually knowing that you went out on the date,” he says. “As trivial as it seems, it’s something most dating apps don’t really know how to do.”
His apps are working and fine-tuning the algorithms, and “that’s where the category is going to go,” he says, so they can make more informed suggestions about who to date.
Late Tuesday, Match reported better-than-expected revenue, helped by its Tinder unit, sending its shares up 13% to $12.70. Shares are still down from their IPO debut close of $14.74 in November.
Yagan co-founded OKCupid in 2003, and sold the company to IAC for $90 million in 2011. IAC named him CEO of Match Inc., and he rose to CEO of the Group, before being named Vice-Chair in late December.
Based in Chicago, he commutes to Dallas to visit Match, Los Angeles for Tinder and Vancouver to check in with Plenty of Fish. OKCupid is in the Windy City.
Yagan spoke Monday on two panels at the Milken 2016 Global Conference, a mega gathering that attracted some 3,500 CEOs, politicians, scientists, tech execs and journalists.
At the conference, Yagan said that dating apps represent one third of all marriages, and for good reason: they’re efficient.
“What else are you going to do, meet at a coffee shop?” he said. “There’s a huge pool of people to choose from, and the ability to see who you’re going to be meeting before you go out,” is a big plus.
Match’s apps range from the swipe right/swipe left Tinder app, to more detailed, data-driven apps like Match and OKCupid.
“Tinder is great because it’s so real time,” he says. “It’s who’s near you right now. OKCupid has a more data-oriented algorithm approach to figuring out who your best match is. It might take you a little longer to get on the date, but you’re going to know exactly who it is.”
Match is for the most serious daters, someone “really committed,” while Plenty of Fish is more mobile focused. “Sign up and you’ll be messaging right away.”
As someone who has read “thousands” of dating profiles on his apps, he’s quite the expert on dating in the digital age.
What’s the latest?
“It’s all about mobile. Dating requires you to meet someone at a certain time, at a certain place. Because the dating pool changes as you move around, where you work, where you travel, where you live...the mobility really generates a lot of new data for the dating apps. Now we can get a sense of how you move about, who you intersect with, who you overlap with. Where you go says a lot about who you are," producing more information for the companies.
On one of the Milken panels, Yagan talked about how dating apps have brought a more diverse circle of potential mates to relationships.
He talked of growing up in suburban Illinois, where he married his high school sweetheart, similar to most of his friends back in the 1990s.
In that situation, “you end up with families who all look alike. You don’t know what side of the tracks other people are on, because so much happens around you and your friends.”
That's changed with dating apps. Just tell Yagan about it when he joins you on your next outing.
Follow Paste BN Tech columnist and #TalkingTech host Jefferson Graham on Twitter, @jeffersongraham and listen to the daily podcasts on TuneIn, iTunes, Stitcher and SoundCloud.