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Comment by bogomipz | Hacker News Reader

Why did a dating site launch a dating app as a separate startup? What was the logic there?

It’s actually a well researched business case study and in the case of Tinder carried out perfectly. It’s too hard for existing company to disrupt itself because it takes too long for the new venture to make a significant difference to the bottom line, the value chain and company structure is too entrenched, the standard for excellence is too high for a nascent product or service. In business literature to avoid getting disrupted you’re supposed to set up a independent office far away and incentivize the “founding” team with upside and full autonomy and credit for success.

Thanks, yeah that makes sense. They weren't spawned from Match which was the source of my confusion they were wholly incubated under IAC Hatch, which makes a lot more sense.

Are you kidding? The same reason Mars produces different chocolate bars. The same reason facebook owns mutliple social networks. The same reason Apple produces multiple phones.

Yeah those are all pretty poor examples.

My question was specifically of why they were spawned from Match which was what the OP stated. They were not actually spawned from Match they were actually incubated under IACs Hatch [1].

Mars produces different chocolate bars for different markets Milky Way was a US product while Mars was an English product. Both Tinder and Match exist in the same markets.

Facebook owns multiple social networks b/c they were a threat to their business. Those are actually different products. The main differentiator between Tinder and Match is the Tinder is mobile-centric. FB did not spin up a separate start up under a different name when it launched it's mobile version did it? No because it had well-established brand awareness much like Match.

Apple also didn't produce a second company to launch the iPhone X did it? No because it had well-established brand awareness much like Match.

So yeah not so obvious.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinder_(app)

That's part of the IAC culture, they have a lot of companies/brands under their belt: Match, Angie's List, Ask, College Humor, dictionary.com, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, Vimeo, Daily Beast, etc etc.

http://www.iac.com/brands

They have lots of segmented dating sites.

Are you looking for the same thing on a dating site as your mother?

...at Farmer's Only dot com.

To give people different choices of platforms, in a sense, like Luxottica with glasses.

To target a different demographic. Because of the stigma associated with Match.com

Out of curiosity was is the stigma associated with Match?

You’re going to be matched with the person you married. Tinder is a little thing that that’s not even a flame... much more casual. Less commitment. More swipes.

Try new things? Aware incubating as a startup is better? Maybe they had many of these. They own match, okcupid, plentyoffish and others, would have made sense to setup a bunch of app teams and let them play.

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