How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett
Exclusive! How to Win on Dating Apps—Secrets from the Man Who Invented Swiping, Tinder’s Jonathan Badeen
Thu, 23 Jan 2025
Ready to finally get great matches on Tinder? Who better to guide you than the man who invented swiping and changed dating forever: Tinder’s visionary co-founder, Jonathan Badeen. Back in the day, Jonathan was struggling to meet women and get dates. (Sound familiar?) He launched Tinder in part to help his own love life, and the world has never been the same. In this exclusive interview with dating coach Connell Barrett, Badeen shares the lightbulb moment when he came up with the swiping idea, reveals the biggest mistakes men make on the apps, and explains why he would absolutely swipe right on Minnie Mouse.In this episode, Jonathan and Connell talk about:2:37: Why Tinder is for More than Just Hookups14:01: The Aha Moment when Jonathan Came Up with Swiping17:26: Why Authenticity is What Women Want—on Tinder and in Real Life26:33: The Real Reason You’re Not Getting Good Matches30:15: The Myth that “Dating Apps Just Don’t Work”34:04: How to Inject Fun into Your profile to Get Women Messaging You First35:47: How Shy Guys and “Nerds” Can Win on the Apps47:01: Why Jonathan Would Swipe Right on Minnie Mouse and Swipe Left on “The Godfather 3”Listen now for wisdom from the man who changed dating—and start landing great Tinder dates today.FOR A FREE STRATEGY CALL WITH CONNELL TO LEARN HOW TO HAVE GREAT FIRST DATES:http://www.datingtransformation.com/contactTO GET FREE ACCESS TO “THE FLIRTY 30,” CHARMING QUESTIONS TO ASK WOMEN ON DATES, ON THE APPS, AND WHEN YOU APPROACH:http://www.datingtransformation.com/FLIRTY30WANT A FREE COPY OF CONNELL’S NO. 1 AMAZON BESTSELLING BOOK, “DATING SUCKS BUT YOU DON’T”? EMAIL CONNELL AND WRITE “FREE BOOK” IN THE SUBJECT LINE AND YOU’LL GET IT INSTANTLY:[email protected]
Chapter 1: Why is Tinder more than just hookups?
there would be such pressure on me, self-induced pressure, thinking like, oh, is this my, when is, I gotta make the best of this because I don't know when the next date's gonna be, you know, and trying to make the most of everything to the point like I have literal sweat
you know like stains on my shirt and stuff and then once I once we built tender I it made it easy enough for me to just kinda go on enough dates just it was like I didn't care so much anymore about is this is this the one or whatever it's like all I care about is going out, having a drink or something, meeting this person, and if it works out great, awesome.
If it doesn't, I'll go out with somebody tomorrow or next week. It's no big deal. And to the point where it kind of flipped. So in the future, a lot of times the women I'd go out with would be the ones who were more nervous, and I was the one who was just chill because it was not a big deal to me at that point. Because you finally had options. Yeah, and I wasn't there to hook up or anything.
Chapter 2: What was the Aha Moment behind swiping?
I wasn't putting my entire future into that night.
That's so insightful what you just said. I didn't know that about you, that you had a relative scarcity of dates or dating options back in the day. Is that right?
Yeah, I would say so. I think that just me being, you know, I think I probably could have got plenty of dates, but I didn't have the confidence or the, you know, just it was me going up and hitting on a girl or something like that was not going to happen generally, which makes it a little hard to, you know, ask somebody out.
But I'm much more comfortable in a digital sense, a little bit of protection of a screen between me and a person to take that initiative then.
Do me a favor. Do you have any memorable dates from before you came up with the idea for using a dating swiping app? Do you remember any of the early dates you had early on that led you to create or co-create Tinder when you realized, you know what, I've got to change some things here based on some problems I have, and that led you on the path to Tinder?
Any dating stories from back in the day that are relevant to you?
You know, I wouldn't say that there were any specific stories that led to it. And a lot of the impetus for Tinder was my co-founder had noticed some of the issues with the existing products that were out there. But, you know, I think just generally the troubles I had made me a little bit more open to the idea of trying to create something. You know, because between just...
meeting people in the world or using things that existed back then like Match.com or OkCupid and all, the kinds of things where I'd go out with people where it's very clear that they were just out for me to buy them a meal and essentially ghosting me afterwards and stuff like that. I think that was from Myspace back in the day. But I think to me, I kind of forget about that stuff.
To me, the most memorable part was just how how absolutely nervous I was. Like I said, I'm not exaggerating about the amount of sweat that I had pouring off of me.
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Chapter 3: How can authenticity improve dating app success?
I think whether those things happened or not, whether that would have deterred Tinder from being created, I don't know, but it sure did make me maybe slightly more motivated to figure out a platform that would work for me a little bit better.
Well, what's amazing about Tinder or any online dating app, once you get it working for you, is it can give you lots of dates, lots of options, an abundance of options. And to your point from a couple of minutes ago, it can make it so much easier for you to relax on a date because all of a sudden the stakes are not as high.
If you have two or three more good leads in your inbox, in your queue, is that what you started to feel once you started getting some more dates from online dating?
Oh, exactly. It was that. It was the fact that I was... You know, I'm sure the first few Tinder dates were much like the, you know, pre-Tinder dates. But after that, it was just like, oh, well, I've got another one tomorrow. And maybe in the back of my mind, I'm even thinking about that date tomorrow instead of the one that I'm on right now.
Chapter 4: What are the reasons for poor match rates?
Not that you should be very focused on whoever you're with or whatever. But I mean, just like, it's just that... There just isn't that pressure. You realize how many people there are out there, especially in a big city like Los Angeles, but you realize how many different options there are and you have a means to find them.
I remember I felt the same way as you. I had very few dating options back when I first started working on my dating life. When I realized I needed to, I had a scarcity of options. If I had one date every three months, that was a really good quarter for me. So the pressure was on. And I remember... It was a combination of Tinder and Match. I was using those two platforms.
And I remember one night through both of those platforms, mainly Tinder, I had three straight dates and three straight nights and three different really cool, cute girls. And all three dates went pretty well. I think I made out with all three girls and all three nights. And I walked home on that third night thinking, oh my gosh, I didn't know that I was that attractive to women.
And I think I took all the credit in the moment. But it was the platforms that were giving me the beginnings of abundance, the beginnings of some options. And that felt amazing to my confidence.
Chapter 5: Do dating apps actually work?
Well, it's you. It's just a matter of pulling you out. These platforms are nothing more than... In many ways, I see them less as dating services and more as introduction services. They're not there for you on the date. They're there to get you introduced to somebody for the date.
Chapter 6: How to make your profile fun and engaging?
I think it's what you make of them and how that affects you and allows you to come out of your shell or express yourself.
A lot of guys struggle with what to talk about on dates. how to hold a good conversation. Do you remember, I'm going to ask you to summon your younger, singular self. When you first started getting some good options, do you remember any tips that began to work for you, especially when you felt more comfortable?
Yeah, I mean, I guess to me, you know, it's always just a little bit about, you know, what you do and what your family. I mean, obviously, you know, you don't want to focus too much on, you know, what you do. That sometimes can be a bad thing to some. But, I mean, it is a big part of our life. Yeah.
You know, and try to figure out the other person's interests and just sort of... You know, for me, it was generally just trying to keep it sort of natural. The most, you know, trying to force something was where it probably wasn't going to go well. Yeah. And so it was... Yeah, it's just trying to learn about the person.
And if the other person's interested and or if they're good at it, they're going to be asking you a lot of questions. And at some point, you just really have to figure out like, wait, am I answering too many questions? I should probably be engaging the other person more too and learning.
Yeah. One of the tips I share with my clients and I'll share right now with the listener is if you catch yourself asking more than three straight questions, Without her asking you a question, feel free to answer one of your own questions as if you had asked yourself. So if you say, oh, where'd you go to college? Oh, what year did you graduate? Oh, what did you major in?
Take a pause and say, okay, I'm going to answer that last question myself as if she asked me. That way you're not constantly trying to interrogate her. It's that quote-unquote interview mode. I'm sure you've heard about that, right? Of course.
Of course. Yeah. No, I think that's important. For me, that comes naturally. I'm somebody who just, you know, that's probably one of my own downfalls. I'm all too eager to share the same information that I'd ask somebody else.
Fair enough. Fair enough. And okay, so let's go back to the story of how you came up with swiping. And we were talking right before I hit record about what the truth is. There's some myth about this that you got the idea for swiping in the shower, which maybe that's an apocryphal story. Tell us the truth. What's the story of how you came up with the right swipe?
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Chapter 7: Can shy guys succeed on dating apps?
uh, flashcards, educational flashcards app that I had, uh, um, I'd been thinking about problems with it and it really had to do with, uh, trying to solve very specific problems. Like while you try to study for your flashcards while walking to class, one handed, uh, eliminating buttons and, you know, trying to indicate whether you got the card right or wrong and all of those sorts of things.
And I woke up one morning, uh, just, uh, literally woke up, sat up in bed and was like, Oh my God, I got it. And I had been basically the swipe had been born for this flashcards app. And I was like, I've got to make this thing. You know, it's, this is the best way to make a flashcards app. Fast forward a few months though.
And, um, and that's actually when I had met Sean, um, my co-founder, Sean Rad. And, uh, we were showing each other our work. Um, and I had showed him the flashcards app and all. And then when we ended up making Tinder, um, We just ended up with an interface that was a stack of cards, and it was serendipitous, basically, and I ended up throwing the swipe in there.
I would never have come up with it for Tinder because I wasn't trying to solve those problems. You have a big heart and an X button in there. didn't, you know, didn't need it. Um, but, uh, but it felt right to put it in there and we didn't even tell people about it. We weren't trying to be sneaky or anything really.
It was just, uh, it was like, yeah, if you figured it out, it's like figuring out, you know, uh, command or control C on your keyboard instead of clicking the copy button or something, you know, it's just a keyboard shortcut. And it was, so it was not, it wasn't some big thing that we were like, we're going to change the world with the swipe or whatever.
It was, and it was a few months later that we had a college student write in and he said something along the lines of that he and his buddies walking down the street or campus or something like that, that they would say swipe right and swipe left as code about the ladies passing by. Wow.
Changing the lexicon that early.
Yeah. And that was the moment where, to me, all of a sudden I was like, oh my God, we tapped into something. And it wasn't long after that where we actually did start including the swipe terminology in our marketing, in our Twitter accounts or Instagram and all of that sort of stuff. And so we started talking about it that way.
But that was really only in response from it sort of taking a life of its own.
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Chapter 8: What is the story behind the swipe feature?
No, you're fine. You're fine. But I just said, oh, I'm going to say what Lauren needs to hear. And of course, she friend-zoned me. She ghosted me. Not because she could probably tell I was lying, but she could probably tell there's just something off about this guy.
But then once I started showing women, and in fact, I had a second chance with her, I started leaning into that nerdy, dorky, smart-ass I am, like a sweet, a sweet... ginger, nerd, but a little bit of edge through sarcasm. She liked that type. And so, yeah, I just had to drop the facade.
And what's so cool about Tinder, I think, or what Tinder did in the world of dating is it said, hey, let's really let you show your freak flag, your authentic, quirky, whatever self you are, and let's draw people in who like your type, right?
Absolutely. And I think, you know...
really shouldn't try to predict what somebody else wants anyway because I mean like I think there's you look at it you know oh I'm looking for somebody who's interested in the same things as me right that's that's the key to success of relationship or is it because they also say opposites attract so I mean like you almost you don't necessarily even know what it is and so maybe you know it's not really worth it to try to predict what the other person is wanting because you know it may not be that or they may not even know what it is until they see what it is
You struggle with dating, right? Sure, you have a good job and cool friends, but you just aren't sure how to flirt, the apps don't work for you, and sometimes women put you in the friend zone. It's frustrating. Hey, I struggled with dating too. As an introvert and a total nerd, I didn't just live in the friend zone. I owned real estate there.
But I escaped using the dating philosophy of radical authenticity, which I've used to help thousands of men in 17 countries find love. It's what I wrote about in my bestselling book, Dating Sucks But You Don't. And radical authenticity is why psychology today called me the best dating coach in America. And now I want to personally help you attract your dream girlfriend.
So go to datingtransformation.com and book a free call with me. On our call, I'll tell you how my one-on-one coaching will help you find your dream girlfriend, and you'll be doing it by flirting with confidence and authenticity. No creepy pickup tricks needed. So go to datingtransformation.com, book a free call today, and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend.
Have you ever – actually, back to Tinder and back to some of the features. Obviously, the swipe right, the swipe left, that's the foundational iconic feature. But there's lots of other bells and whistles that have been on and off of Tinder over the years. Are there any features you ever thought up that never made it on Tinder that you thought, oh, man, that would have been a great idea?
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