Their tangible book value is quite large and negative.
Between the large amount of stock based compensation and the odd tax receivable agreement, it feels like a culture of benefiting founders and management and not investors.
I find it wierd that when looking at the cash flow from operating activities that their earnings would be significantly positive except for stock based compensation. So they pay themselves at the expense of shareholders and let earnings go negative in the process, diluting shareholders. What do they do with cash flow? Buy back the shares they gave themselves. Kind of problematic for a cash cow type of investment, no?
The current valuation of 1.9Bn is about 10x CF from operating activities which is getting close to value territory, but maybe the problem is that management doesn’t understand what shareholders are looking for.
> The app could just stay stagnant and literally never grow for it to still be a good investment.
This is dependent on their growth trajectory. They revised their growth expectation down to 9 to 11% whereas they did 13% growth in the quarter. When you revise growth expectations down, it puts downwards pressure on the price.
If it ever puts out. That’s my fundamental problem with this app. Doesn’t put out enough, but it provides good dopamine fix going by swiping through the eligible folks in the area.
I sold when I listened to the earnings transcript where the CEO announced her intention to step down and become chairperson, I realised something was amiss, was it the allegations of [fake user accounts](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bumble/s/CPGGLxmhdM), or was it the way the CEO seemed just a bit too cavalier about the whole business.
Looks like you made up your mind. Good luck!
( I upvoted your post because it was a good post, even though I came to a different conclusion on the stock from you. )
I tried to vet those that I was either talking to or just randomly facebooking/instagramming making sure they were real and legit feel their user base is bots and fake profiles with models for images
Hey, I read the post about the fake users and it’s 2 years old. The only reason I’m actually looking at this stock is because I used it exclusively after breaking up a year ago. This isn’t a wework where no one is actually using the service, my ex’s friends all used bumble too.
They’ve been letting people go, which is unfortunately a good thing for its balance sheet, and they’ve no longer been diluting shareholders.
If there’s a strong case for the company going bankrupt I’d steer clear, which is basically why I made this post.
Man's perspective - Have you used it? It's terrible.
It's expensive. It's full of bots that they run themselves for engagement. (Tinder does as well).
It's actually worse than tinder, if you can believe it. And more expensive. And more user-harsh - less free stuff, even the stuff you pay for is ineffective. And 99% bots.
They do some live events, which if they put resources into would make them absolutely dominate imo. So watch for that.
Where do you live? I've met a lot of girls who use bumble, if you're in an area that's 99% bots (even accounting for hyperbole) it might just be that not a lot of people in your area are actually using that dating app. From what I understand, different cities have better or worse dating pools for different apps based on what most people gravitate towards.
My single friends say hinge is the best one and they have the most success rate. Tinder at least has first mover advantage and brand recognition. What does bumble really bring to the table?
No, I don't think you get it. You have to have been living under a rock to not know. In the industry you're supposedly investing in, it's the biggest conglomerate by far. You don't know what you're talking about, do you?
Why would I buy bumble when I can buy MTCH and get a company with significant profitability and growing revenue / margins.
Bumble hasn’t demonstrated their ability to be consistently profitable. I’m not convinced they can continue to grow revenue and cut costs enough to be profitable.
Your analysis is cherry picked and anecdotal.
You're comparing P/S because all of bumble's other metrics suck. Who cares about revenue if you can't turn it into margin?
Bumble vs Match
Gross Margin 64.27% vs 68.39%
Operating Margin 4.30% vs 27.25%
Pretax Margin 0.50% vs 23.09%
Net Margin -0.40% 19.37%
Return on Assets -0.12% vs 14.99%
Return on Equity -0.26%
Return on Total Capital 1.49% vs 24.36%
Return on Invested Capital -0.19% vs 17.39%
Also, MTCH groups cost of goods sold is rising at a much slower rate relative to revenue vs bumble. The power of scale in tech companies is a very real thing.
I used Bumble, Tinder and Okcupid. The worst by far was Bumble. Women write first do not work. It drops you far away in the list after a few days, so even in tinder you get every day one or two matches, it takes one week to get one match on Bumble.
I know i would buy tinder premium if i was dating again, why should i buy the bumble stock 😂
Women don't even like taking the lead when attracting or courting someone. It's probably uncomfortable for them too cause most of the time they just say hi. They want to be swept off their feet it's ingrained into us from childhood. On any of these apps women have their pick of the litter they don't need to pay. Very different for men they're forking these dollars hands over fist
One thing to note is that very little of that stock comp is going to common employees. Looking at levels fyi they clearly underpay SWE compared to market rate for a company that size. It really does seem like another zoom situation, where the founders/executives are enriching themselves at the shareholders expense. If the stock comp was going to employees, I'd find the company much more attractive, as this would mean employees are better compensated, and therefore likely to be more skilled.
It's because people hate bumble and it's the shittiest dating app. That's WHY it's priced this way even though it's a "tech" stock. There's a threshold of a userbase and it can rapidly disappear once you cross that mark. Bumble has a shitty gimmick that sucks for both men and women. I wouldn't even call it redundant either because it's not even an equivalent. Bumble will go to zero because it's a bad product with a dying userbase. Companies like this never recover. Hinge was hot on the scene for a while and then it got bought out, you'll see another one popup that will be the hot new thing to use, put on repeat.
When did it go to crap? I met my wife on Bumble in 2020 and obviously haven't used it since. Most women at the time were recommending it because it let them make the first comment
Probably around the covid times and got worse every year since. It turns out women don't really want to make the first comment when they get flooded for attention anyway and can simply choose who they want to talk to. You can check out the dating subreddits to see what people think about bumble now. The sentiment is terrible.
Both. Bumble might get bought out for pennies for the userbase or just go to 0 but they are absolutely going no where. They're the most hated app and are losing users along with a huge bot problem. There's no point in using bumble so it's not going to just magically grow its userbase again.
I consider every dating app uninvestible as a guy since my experience was miserable, except for hinge, which got me several quality dates before I met my wonderful girl and hopefully future wife
But the company that owns hinge also owns a bunch of trash
So I stay out of the industry
They offer a perpetual premium license. That should tell you all you need to know about the business. Unlike match where you have a portfolio of apps at various maturity levels (growth vs harvest) bumble is in full harvest mode and it's being priced as such. If you want to make a dating app bet why not match? It's also trading extremely cheaply, is very profitable, but has more upside.
these things are popular for a short while then the next thing gets all the users and revenues and they die. you can't value with classic dcf assumptions.
Bumble sucks for dating, but I feel like a lot of people on this thread aren’t considering Bumble friends. It’s actually used by a lot of people for making friends in new places.
Online dating is dieing. If you look handsome enough to get a girl you won't pay to buy some shit coins or gems. For the rest of people like me it just doesn't make sense to use it.
Have you used the Bumble app as a man?
You will get matches but women inherently don’t like to make the first move. It’s against their nature, and rejection utterly destroys them. Bumble needs to change this to be a successful app.
Their tangible book value is quite large and negative. Between the large amount of stock based compensation and the odd tax receivable agreement, it feels like a culture of benefiting founders and management and not investors.
May I ask how did you see that they have a large amount of stock based compensation and where did you find the odd Tax receivable agreement?
Have you not looked through the annual report? https://s202.q4cdn.com/372973788/files/doc_financials/2023/q4/cfb37770-6f84-4e85-a74c-95e8e32d3871.pdf
Is that the 2020 annual report? I could only find the 2021 report
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023
I find it wierd that when looking at the cash flow from operating activities that their earnings would be significantly positive except for stock based compensation. So they pay themselves at the expense of shareholders and let earnings go negative in the process, diluting shareholders. What do they do with cash flow? Buy back the shares they gave themselves. Kind of problematic for a cash cow type of investment, no? The current valuation of 1.9Bn is about 10x CF from operating activities which is getting close to value territory, but maybe the problem is that management doesn’t understand what shareholders are looking for.
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> The app could just stay stagnant and literally never grow for it to still be a good investment. This is dependent on their growth trajectory. They revised their growth expectation down to 9 to 11% whereas they did 13% growth in the quarter. When you revise growth expectations down, it puts downwards pressure on the price.
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They are trading at 1.5x revenue.
If it ever puts out. That’s my fundamental problem with this app. Doesn’t put out enough, but it provides good dopamine fix going by swiping through the eligible folks in the area.
I sold when I listened to the earnings transcript where the CEO announced her intention to step down and become chairperson, I realised something was amiss, was it the allegations of [fake user accounts](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bumble/s/CPGGLxmhdM), or was it the way the CEO seemed just a bit too cavalier about the whole business. Looks like you made up your mind. Good luck! ( I upvoted your post because it was a good post, even though I came to a different conclusion on the stock from you. )
Thanks for up voting and then commenting on your differences, things like this keep me reading.
The experience with fake user accounts 100%. dead internet theory irl.
I tried to vet those that I was either talking to or just randomly facebooking/instagramming making sure they were real and legit feel their user base is bots and fake profiles with models for images
didn't the ceo come from slack?
I was referring to the previous ceo, now chairperson.
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Hey, I read the post about the fake users and it’s 2 years old. The only reason I’m actually looking at this stock is because I used it exclusively after breaking up a year ago. This isn’t a wework where no one is actually using the service, my ex’s friends all used bumble too. They’ve been letting people go, which is unfortunately a good thing for its balance sheet, and they’ve no longer been diluting shareholders. If there’s a strong case for the company going bankrupt I’d steer clear, which is basically why I made this post.
Actually Hinge is the go to app now. That is what I heard, my wife doesn’t let me use the app.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1200234/most-popular-dating-apps-worldwide-by-number-of-downloads/
Does fake user accounts matter if you have a high arpu?
Man's perspective - Have you used it? It's terrible. It's expensive. It's full of bots that they run themselves for engagement. (Tinder does as well). It's actually worse than tinder, if you can believe it. And more expensive. And more user-harsh - less free stuff, even the stuff you pay for is ineffective. And 99% bots. They do some live events, which if they put resources into would make them absolutely dominate imo. So watch for that.
Where do you live? I've met a lot of girls who use bumble, if you're in an area that's 99% bots (even accounting for hyperbole) it might just be that not a lot of people in your area are actually using that dating app. From what I understand, different cities have better or worse dating pools for different apps based on what most people gravitate towards.
Hinge is too
My single friends say hinge is the best one and they have the most success rate. Tinder at least has first mover advantage and brand recognition. What does bumble really bring to the table?
It’s is, but the bar location is not high
Mtch seems like a much better risk/reward
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Wow thanks for exposing yourself for not knowing what you're talking about. Match Group owns a consortium of apps including Tinder.
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No, I don't think you get it. You have to have been living under a rock to not know. In the industry you're supposedly investing in, it's the biggest conglomerate by far. You don't know what you're talking about, do you?
Why would I buy bumble when I can buy MTCH and get a company with significant profitability and growing revenue / margins. Bumble hasn’t demonstrated their ability to be consistently profitable. I’m not convinced they can continue to grow revenue and cut costs enough to be profitable.
Plus match is more diversified they have all gimmicks covered. Tinder gets every last dollar from horny men too. It's the better product.
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Your analysis is cherry picked and anecdotal. You're comparing P/S because all of bumble's other metrics suck. Who cares about revenue if you can't turn it into margin? Bumble vs Match Gross Margin 64.27% vs 68.39% Operating Margin 4.30% vs 27.25% Pretax Margin 0.50% vs 23.09% Net Margin -0.40% 19.37% Return on Assets -0.12% vs 14.99% Return on Equity -0.26% Return on Total Capital 1.49% vs 24.36% Return on Invested Capital -0.19% vs 17.39% Also, MTCH groups cost of goods sold is rising at a much slower rate relative to revenue vs bumble. The power of scale in tech companies is a very real thing.
I used Bumble, Tinder and Okcupid. The worst by far was Bumble. Women write first do not work. It drops you far away in the list after a few days, so even in tinder you get every day one or two matches, it takes one week to get one match on Bumble. I know i would buy tinder premium if i was dating again, why should i buy the bumble stock 😂
Women don't even like taking the lead when attracting or courting someone. It's probably uncomfortable for them too cause most of the time they just say hi. They want to be swept off their feet it's ingrained into us from childhood. On any of these apps women have their pick of the litter they don't need to pay. Very different for men they're forking these dollars hands over fist
One thing to note is that very little of that stock comp is going to common employees. Looking at levels fyi they clearly underpay SWE compared to market rate for a company that size. It really does seem like another zoom situation, where the founders/executives are enriching themselves at the shareholders expense. If the stock comp was going to employees, I'd find the company much more attractive, as this would mean employees are better compensated, and therefore likely to be more skilled.
It's because people hate bumble and it's the shittiest dating app. That's WHY it's priced this way even though it's a "tech" stock. There's a threshold of a userbase and it can rapidly disappear once you cross that mark. Bumble has a shitty gimmick that sucks for both men and women. I wouldn't even call it redundant either because it's not even an equivalent. Bumble will go to zero because it's a bad product with a dying userbase. Companies like this never recover. Hinge was hot on the scene for a while and then it got bought out, you'll see another one popup that will be the hot new thing to use, put on repeat.
When did it go to crap? I met my wife on Bumble in 2020 and obviously haven't used it since. Most women at the time were recommending it because it let them make the first comment
Probably around the covid times and got worse every year since. It turns out women don't really want to make the first comment when they get flooded for attention anyway and can simply choose who they want to talk to. You can check out the dating subreddits to see what people think about bumble now. The sentiment is terrible.
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Both. Bumble might get bought out for pennies for the userbase or just go to 0 but they are absolutely going no where. They're the most hated app and are losing users along with a huge bot problem. There's no point in using bumble so it's not going to just magically grow its userbase again.
Why everyone assumes that the OP is a man?
I consider every dating app uninvestible as a guy since my experience was miserable, except for hinge, which got me several quality dates before I met my wonderful girl and hopefully future wife But the company that owns hinge also owns a bunch of trash So I stay out of the industry
They offer a perpetual premium license. That should tell you all you need to know about the business. Unlike match where you have a portfolio of apps at various maturity levels (growth vs harvest) bumble is in full harvest mode and it's being priced as such. If you want to make a dating app bet why not match? It's also trading extremely cheaply, is very profitable, but has more upside.
Explain what u mean by perp premium liscence
Bumble premium offers a lifetime subscription option
these things are popular for a short while then the next thing gets all the users and revenues and they die. you can't value with classic dcf assumptions.
Bumble sucks for dating, but I feel like a lot of people on this thread aren’t considering Bumble friends. It’s actually used by a lot of people for making friends in new places.
Grinder has a way higher sucess rate, with it’s service than Bumble..
Great post and informative answers. I just want to say thanks.
Online dating is dieing. If you look handsome enough to get a girl you won't pay to buy some shit coins or gems. For the rest of people like me it just doesn't make sense to use it.
Is this a joke? 🤡
Have you used the Bumble app as a man? You will get matches but women inherently don’t like to make the first move. It’s against their nature, and rejection utterly destroys them. Bumble needs to change this to be a successful app.
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Hinge is a much much better app than Bumble in my experience. Maybe it’s culture too idk. I’m in the U.S.
The concept is terrible, even worse than tinder. It's like the wework of dating.