Meet Up With The Harvard-Stanford MBA Sister Act Behind Millennial Dating App Coffee Meets Bagel

Arum and Dawoon Kang are dealing with Tinder using their app that is dating for

(Left to right) Dawoon, older sister Soo, and sister that is twin, pitch on tv program Shark Tank

Arum Kang came up because of the basic concept for Coffee Meets Bagel during an MBA at Harvard company class. She ended up being certainly one of a a small number of pupils through the HBS MBA course of 2011 to take to begin their particular company.

Today, Coffee Meets Bagel solutions globally. The dating that is tinder-like has made over one billion introductions up to now, accountable for 100,000-plus partners in pleased relationships.

Arum operates the app—targeted at millennials—with her double sibling Dawoon and older cousin Soo. In 2015, they also pitched up to a panel of high-profile investors on United States truth tv program Shark Tank.

“i did son’t get to HBS thinking I happened to be planning to begin a company, but being here certainly exposed me more to entrepreneurship,” Arum recalls.

“In therefore ways that are many my MBA experience permitted me become operator. We don’t think We might have gotten started after all if i did son’t have that system of men and women i possibly could make use of, that have been therefore happy to help.”

Initially from Southern Korea, the Kang siblings originate from family members of business owners. Their dad went their scrap that is own iron; their mom handled a number of pubs and restaurants.

Dawoon has constantly had entrepreneurship inside her brain. While Arum went for Harvard, she decided Stanford on her behalf MBA.

After finishing her MBA at Stanford in ’09, Dawoon invested many years at JP Morgan until, whenever Arum graduated from Harvard, she joined up with forces along with her siblings to begin her very very first company.

“We desired to make a move that directly impacts individuals’ everyday everyday lives,” Dawoon recalls. “Dating arrived up as a typical discomfort point.

“There’s plenty of fatigue and frustration with contemporary dating—i believe it is become really complicated,” she continues. “I’m interested in using Coffee suits Bagel as a car to improve the discussion; getting this generation to share with you and link more authentically.

“once you think of major millennial dating apps now, there’s Tinder, Bumble, and Coffee Meets Bagel.”

On Coffee Meets Bagel, users are paired through an intelligent algorithm, deciding to either ‘like’ or ‘pass’ a profile to discover the best match that is potential.

In September 2017, the San Francisco-based business analyzed tens of thousands of matches to ascertain the ‘most liked’ singles at company schools over the usa. There clearly was debate one of the b-school community whenever ladies MBAs from Harvard had been reported as the utmost appealing (most liked regarding the software), whilst the many men that are liked from Stanford GSB.

“There had been plenty of attractive individuals at Stanford!” Dawoon laughs. “With a lot of people that are like-minded there clearly was a lot of dating taking place. In a course of 300 individuals, there have been like 30 partners! We undoubtedly had my share that is fair of.”

When Dawoon speaks women in technology, she takes an even more tone that is serious. She’s keen to use her place as a tech that is female to advertise the part of females in a market nevertheless dominated by guys.

“from the using computer technology course in university and reasoning, I try not to belong right here,” she states. “I struggled and I also straight away thought; I’m perhaps not proficient at this. I believe if there was indeed more women represented within the course, I would personallyn’t have jumped towards the exact same conclusions therefore quickly.

“It makes a big difference for young adults to see representation of one’s own type involved in a certain industry,” she continues. “If we really would like equality, we must get every person equally represented up for grabs.”

Do you may need an MBA to be a business owner? “No,” Dawoon concludes. “But it is been extremely valuable bumble-recensies for me personally.

“One associated with things you leverage can be your system. Employing the right skill; getting good partnerships; all that comes down to individuals we understand through the MBA.”