Another Dating App?! A Kellogg MBA Thinks So

Fahim Naim

Naim needed a change. He was interested in tech, e-commerce, and B2C. And he thought an MBA was the best way to make the transition. Specifically, he decided he wanted an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, after looking at the “top five schools” and being accepted to Kellogg and “a couple others.”

Before arriving on campus, Naim participated in the Kellogg Worldwide Experiences and Service Trips (KWEST) program. The optional program places first-year students in groups of 20 and matches them with five second-year “leaders.” According to Kellogg’s website, students can choose from international destinations like Chile, Egypt, Iceland, among others. Or they can choose domestic options such as Alaska, Hawaii, or California’s Yosemite National Park.

Naim chose the mystery option where you don’t know your destination until you get to the airport.

‘WE TALKED ABOUT VALUES AND WHAT MATTERS MOST TO US’

“The beauty of KWEST is going into the trip, you’re not supposed to share things about yourself like where you’re from, what your background was, what you’ve done, etcetera, until the final days of the trip,” Naim explains. “It forces you to go to a deeper level.”

Naim and his group ended up in Tanzania, and spent time in Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam. He recalls having deep and insightful conversations “about travel, about women, about fashion, about things that probably won’t come up till further along in a friendship. We talked about values and what matters most to us.”

QUITTING AMAZON TO LAUNCH THE APP

As Naim arrived on campus for his MBA experience, what he’d learned on KWEST stuck with him. “I was mesmerized that I could take a one-week trip with 20 strangers and feel so close to them immediately after that trip,” he remembers. “And I attribute the majority of that success to the fact that we had to force each other to have conversations on a deeper level and avoid some of that small talk that we typically engage in when we meet someone.”

Naim spent the summer in between his first and second year interning at Deloitte. After graduating in 2013, he went to work at Amazon in Seattle. All the while, Naim says, he listened to “hundreds” of his MBA and young professional friends complain about dating apps and dating in general. Naim, who met the woman who would become his wife seven years ago missed out on the heyday of dating apps.

Still, he was intrigued and started researching. He also quit his job at Amazon, moved to San Francisco, and started his own consulting business to pay the bills while exploring and pursuing what it’d be like to launch another dating app in an already crowded market.

HELP FROM THE GURU OF ONLINE DATING

Naim consulted with Kellogg professor Eli Finkel, who, in 2012, published a robust research report on online dating before Tinder even existed. Based on his research, Finkel was published in the New York Times defending Tinder but pointing out two faults. First, “browsing profiles is virtually useless for discerning the sort of information that actually matters in a successful relationship.”

Second, “effective matchmaking algorithms could be based on information provided by individuals who were unaware of one another’s existence,” Finkel wrote. And to be sure, Naim is a Finkel disciple. He mentions his work and influence multiple times during an hour-long conversation.

“Tinder, Hinge, Coffee Meets Bagel, most of these dating apps, it feels good to get a match,” Naim asserts. “And it’s a confidence booster, and it’s fun, and they’ve done a great job of gamifying their experience, but the majority of people that are on the platform or you match with may not be a good fit with you.”