I Am Dawoon Kang, Founder of Coffee Meets Bagel, and also this Is The Way I Work
After seeing the poisoning of other services that are dating Dawoon Kang created Coffee Meets Bagel as a safer, friendlier alternative. We chatted to her about re re re solving might dilemma of numerous right online dating services, and exactly how she manages her business in ways in line with CMB’s values. Dawoon also shared a dating tip that no software can show you.
Present gig: CEO of Coffee Meets BagelLocation: SFCurrent computer: MacBook AirCurrent smart phone: iPhone 8One word that most readily useful describes the manner in which you work: extremely
Today first of all, tell us a little about your background and how you got to where you are.
I’m initially from Korea, where I was raised within an entrepreneurial household. My father began a recycling steel company in Korea together with cousin, and my mother owned and operated a shop that is small.
My two siblings and I also spent my youth viewing my moms and dads place a great deal of these hope, dreams, and passion in their businesses. Often there clearly was dissatisfaction, self-doubt, and anxiety, too. However they were therefore resilient. They desired to keep a legacy.
In 2012 my twin sister finished from company college. I happened to be working at JP Morgan. It felt like perfect timing for all of us to start out one thing. Dating ended up being one of several ideas that are many considered. It simply kept coming among our buddies.
It’s a tremendously interesting issue, a significant issue. We investigated the industry, and now we discovered some jpeoplemeet interesting characteristics. Once you begin utilizing dating apps, you obtain confused. The knowledge are seedy, it may be overwhelming. Each and every platform we utilized, I experienced the exact same experience.
Straight dating apps have constantly possessed an imbalance that is huge sex ratio. There are tons more guys than ladies making use of apps that are dating they’re nearly two times as active. Due to that, dudes have really frustrated and take part in actions that turn fully off females a lot more, plus the cycle that is vicious. So we wanted to produce a great experience for everybody, while making a platform and experience that appealed to females. We worry about security and quality. And therefore ended up being the genesis of Coffee Meets Bagel.
Simply Take us by way of a present workday.
We woke up at 7 a.m., and I also meditated for 10 min. I quickly took a shower that is hotwhich can be really certainly one of the best elements of the day), and later, used to do some yoga and stretching. I headed to work after I made my morning coffee.
At work, I launched my calendar, religiously observed whatever it said. I invested the very first 1-2 hours of my workday targeting long-lasting projects that are strategic prepping leadership off-site. The remainder was packed with meetings, where I collaborated with my team to make a lot of decisions day. Here’s a snapshot of exactly what several of those meetings appeared to be:
Product-Design Meeting: talked about exactly what the movement of our new features should be. On CMB we now have a membership package, and we’ve gotten feedback it needs to be better, in terms of getting the real connection with other people that it’s good but. Therefore inside our item design conference, you will find some some ideas we’re testing, so we reviewed the mock-ups, and assess just what it is prefer to have these experiences for a day-to-day foundation. A good friction that is tiny exacerbated whenever you’re utilizing it each day.
Weekly Staff Meeting: paid attention to and shared updates on our weekly performance. This is when executives speak about items that impact the remaining portion of the group. There’s a spending plan proposal that people needed seriously to make choices on, and now we had a need to finalize our quarter-one one-pagers: summaries of each group’s goals and priorities.
1:1 With My CFO: Exchanged candid feedback for each other’s interaction designs. Whenever your business is employing lots of people in an exceedingly small amount of time, you should be vigilant in regards to the tradition modifications that may take place through the brand new influx of men and women. We’ve had quite an influx of men and women, specially at the extremely level that is senior and they’ve got a large experience to their particular businesses. At CMB we now have very distinctive values we stress: ownership, accountability, collaboration, constant learning, and candor. I’ve this discussion lots, plus it’s crucial for me personally to share it once I don’t view it being demonstrated. To not phone anybody away! Behavioral change takes time.
What’s your workplace setup like? What’s your hack that is best or shortcut?
We have two monitors: one and a laptop computer, and I also have an ergonomic keyboard and mouse. On my right, i’ve a little succulent, and a vision is kept by me board with a few of my top business priorities when it comes to quarter. We also have actually a written book i’ve been reading: Sprint: just how to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas Five Days by Jake Knapp. And tea, have actually tea.
My biggest “hack” would be to put everything crucial on the calendar also to abide by it towards the teeth. When we place one thing back at my calendar, we hardly ever alter plans. By after this process, we don’t need certainly to do since decision-making that is much my priorities for your day, find there’s less space for procrastination.
What hacks went into Coffee Meets Bagel?
Manpower. At first, everything on Coffee Meets Bagel ended up being done manually. Manual matching. Handbook approval.
Matching had been a thing that we quickly automated. Handbook matching takes time, you must check out the whole pool, it is simply excessively. We simply did we had been screening with about 50 of our friends. So we would simply stay here and select and guess—they had been our buddies, therefore we obviously knew them and might match them. And we’d send them a contact. They would be called by us and ask them “Hey, what was today’s match and exactly what do you imagine? ”
Manual approving really continued for a long time, that was a pain that is real. Of us looking over everybody making certain they certainly were safe.