PortalsOS

Despite Grindr's controversial nature, the app was an incredible business opportunity due to its profitability and strong market position. The company was growing rapidly, and users loved the product.

Grindr had several challenges: a public privacy issue with user data, complications with Chinese ownership, and a PR problem. Despite these, we saw potential due to the strong customer love for the product.

We bought Grindr for about $600 million, which was under market value due to a lack of competition in the process. The company was doing less than $50 million in EBITDA at the time, translating to a 12-13x EBITDA multiple, while public companies were trading at around 20x.

Hiring the head of global privacy and safety from Yahoo, a gay man, was crucial for Grindr. His presence reassured 12 of the 13 attorney generals who were suing us, leading them to drop their concerns.

Jeff Bonforte reflects on the success of Grindr: 'We took Grindr from $100 million of revenue to $200 million in two and a half years by upgrading talent, tech, and launching new products. Applying the Tinder playbook was key to our strategy.'

COVID-19 hit during the acquisition process, causing user numbers to drop by 20-30% as Grindr is a location-based app. This added to the stress and complexity of the acquisition.

When Grindr was up for sale, many typical buyers were deterred due to the app's association with gay dating, revealing latent homophobia in the investment process. This allowed non-traditional private equity firms to purchase the company.

Despite the stress and physical toll, the acquisition of Grindr was a perfect match for our skillset, built over 20 years. The high user engagement made it the most rewarding work as a product manager.

When we took Grindr public for $2 billion on the New York Stock Exchange, we created a 9x return on the $200 million of equity, generating about $1.6 billion in value.

The App Store rating for Grindr was shockingly low at 1.8, and the Glassdoor management rating was 19%. Despite this, the company was generating $100 million in revenue and $45 million in profit, indicating severe mismanagement but also great opportunity.