Bumble’s CEO built a multibillion-dollar business – here’s her advice for starting a side hustle: ‘You can monetize anything’

According to Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, anyone can successfully start a side hustle and turn it into a thriving business.

“You can monetize anything,” Wolfe Herd, who built Bumble into a business now worth over $7 billion, told CNBC Make It in 2019.

To start, “figure out what you’re passionate about,” she said, “and if you’re really good at it, there’s some way to turn it into a business.”

For example, “maybe you’re an incredible cook – start a cooking blog, then start charging for recipes. It depends on what your talents are, whatever that might be.”

Kevin O’Leary also recommends pursuing a side hustle that you’re passionate about, and one that highlights your talents and one for which there is demand – sell “a good or service that you dreamt up and [are] really great at,” he previously told CNBC Make It.

Some of the most in demand side hustles right now include tutoring gigs, resume-writing and social media management, to name a few.

“I think anybody can make money at something they’re good at,” Wolfe Herd says.

Wolfe Herd launched Bumble in 2014 after leaving Tinder, where she was vice president of marketing. She initially wanted to create a social media platform targeted to teen girls where they could only communicate through compliments. But with her knowledge in the dating space and experience in marketing, she ultimately created Bumble, a dating app that let women make the first move, which at the time, defied previous dating norms.

In 2016, Bumble began to monetize its app by offering options for in-app purchases. Today, Bumble offers those features and more, which range from $5.99 to subscriptions worth up to $199.99. According to its IPO filing, Bumble had $376.6 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2020, with a net loss of $84.1 million. During that period in 2019, Bumble had $362.6 million in revenue and a net profit of $68.6 million.

In its initial public offering, Bumble raised $2.2 billion from investors, and in turn, made Wolfe Herd one of the youngest billionaires at 31.

“You have to start somewhere,” Wolf Herd said. “Just find your passion and lean into it.”

—Reporting by Sarah Berger

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