Who is Badoo and How’d They Get to 330 Million Users?
While technological advancements have changed the world in many ways, perhaps the most significant is the increasing connectivity between individuals. Social media and networking sites have brought people together like never before, both locally and across the world. Early social networking sites allowed members to post information and contact each other through email. This progressed into instant messaging, which allowed people to converse over the Internet in real time.
However, the newest online social networks allow people to connect in a wide variety of ways, from messaging to video chatting to finding local people to meet. One such company is Badoo, one of the industry leaders in social networking.
What is Badoo?
With over 330 million members, Badoo is one of the world’s foremost social networking companies. It has members in 190 countries around the world, although it is especially popular in Latin America, France, Spain, and Italy.
Badoo offers a diverse and intuitive way to connect with other people online. It can be used for finding people with similar interests and building new friendships, but it is most popular as a dating and hook-up site. What sets it apart from other social networking services is that there are several ways to connect with other people through Badoo, such as searching nearby members and a matching game to pair people based on their profiles.
Founder
Badoo was founded by the Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev. He was born in Moscow and studied management at a local university before deciding to drop out and found his first company.
Andeev has founded several technology companies, all of which have been very successful. His first was Spylog, a web-tracking service that allowed companies to find information on the number of visits to their websites. This was followed by Begun, which was an early online advertising company. Next came a company called Mamba, which is still one of Russia’s most popular dating sites.
In 2006, he launched Badoo. This has been by far his most successful company to date.
Timeline
In 2006, Badoo was founded and launched in Spain and London. Throughout 2007, it managed to raise an impressive $30 million in funding. A great contribution came from the Russian investment group Finam Global, which purchased a 10% stake in the company for $30 million in 2008.
With Badoo already experiencing enormous growth, it made its USA debut in 2012. This was a highly publicized event, and was even launched by Nick Cannon. The company continued to grow, eventually purchasing the anonymous rating app Lulu in 2016.
In the future, it aims to add additional features to continue making the site feel safer, especially for women. These features will include photo verification technologies which ensure an individual’s profile is actually that person. As well, the company is looking into virtual reality as a possible means for people to feel truly connected, and it is even pursuing ways to keep people connected when offline.
Profile
The first step in using Badoo to meet new people is creating a profile. Much like other social networks, the profile consists of some basic information like age, name, hobbies, interests, and a photo. It is also a great place to tell others what you’re looking for, whether it is finding new friends, hook-ups, or a serious relationship.
Encounters
At the heart of the service is the Encounters function. With Encounters, members can see pictures of nearby people who match their interests. If you like the person, there is a small heart icon beside their picture that can be clicked. When both people click this “crush” feature, they can see each other’s profiles and meet up.
Finding Nearby People
Badoo also allows users to simply search for nearby people. Members can search in general, or narrow results by gender, sexual orientation, relationship status, and more. Clicking on the “chat” button on a person’s profile allows users to start sending messages back and forth. People can also be blocked, if necessary.
Multiple Platforms
Badoo has a free app that can be downloaded on iOS and Android devices. As well, it has a website that can be used if the app is not downloaded.
Success
To date, Badoo has over 330 million users in many countries around the world. As it grew, hundreds of thousands of individuals were signing up every day. In fact, it was so successful as a Facebook app that Facebook threatened to remove it unless it became less viral.
Its international expansion was one of the crucial aspects to its success. Badoo added 8 million US members from March of 2012, when it debuted in the country, to May of the same year. In 2012, it passed the 150 million mark for memberships, a milestone which has since been doubled.
As well, its success can be partly attributed to its commitment to bringing in highly qualified individuals to work on the service. One notable example is a former Google executive, Benjamin Ling, who was hired as Badoo’s Chief Operating Officer.
It now has over 200 staff members, and makes over $150 million each year.
Cost
Signing up for Badoo is free. Most of the features can be accessed for free, and users can have an excellent experience without paying any money. In fact, the vast majority of Badoo users simply use the free version.
Premium features can be accessed for a price. These features enhance the networking process and give members a better chance of meeting people. By paying extra, a person’s profile will have greater visibility when others are searching nearby, they will see more results from their own searches, and they can see which messages have been read, among other benefits.
Conclusion
Badoo has managed to become one of the world’s most successful social networking services. It is available as an app as well as a website, making it accessible for anyone with an Internet connection. It is simple to use and free to sign up, although premium features can be purchased to improve the networking experience. With Badoo, there are many ways to connect with new people. Most notably, the Encounters function is a matching game that allows people to like each other’s pictures and start chatting. As well, searching for nearby individuals can be refined with filters, which allows people to find others with the same goals and interests.
Its success can be attributed to several factors. Most importantly, its founder, Andrey Andreev, has a long history of creating successful companies. As well, it prioritized international expansion while recruiting talented executives to ensure a premium product.
It is a fun, versatile, and simple networking site. Anyone who wants to meet new people online will enjoy this service, especially because it features so many ways to connect. Pictures, videos, instant messages, and public profiles all come together to form the well-rounded experience that defines meeting people on Badoo.