Matched and Deleted, But Remembered
The curious case of Hinge and SATC
Three years ago, I swiped right on the man who would become my husband. We met on Hinge. A few months ago, while watching an old episode of Sex and the City with a girlfriend, we hit the crossword scene - Carrie helping Big with the word ‘Hinge.’ The show aired years before the app was born, so no, this wasn’t product placement.
But when I saw that, I remembered Hinge (the app). By then, I had already deleted Hinge, following its infamous tagline - “Designed to be Deleted.” But even after that, the app was a part of my subconscious. It was branding baked into my memory. That moment was weirdly nostalgic.
Emotions dramatically influence memory retention and loyalty. Neuro-imaging studies show that emotionally charged marketing campaigns activate the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center. When you emotionally resonate with a brand - you become a loyal customer, an unpaid brand ambassador, so to speak. I may not be a customer anymore but I’m definitely a success story.
How does Hinge stand out if it’s basically just another chat app for singles?
The Economics of Hope
Let’s be honest, most dating apps are barely-functional-dollar-stores disguised as “connection platforms.” The stats are bleak. Industry-wide, only about 10% of users find a long-term partner. Hinge? Roughly 5% according to a survey done by Shane Co. That’s worse than your odds at a Vegas table (a good 35%-50%). But still, people flock to it. Why? Because marketing sells possibility, not probability. It sells the dream of being in the lucky minority.
Hinge doesn’t succeed because it matches people better, it succeeds because it markets hope better. And this hope is addictive. That’s the essence of positioning - it creates meaning where none inherently exists.
And, based on the latest financial data, Hinge is making some serious money. In 2024, it generated an impressive $550 million in revenue, marking a 39% increase from 2023. With 30 million active users and 1.5 million paying subscribers (a 23% year-over-year increase), the app has made hope into a lucrative business model. Each paying user generates an average of $29.94 in revenue, contributing to an adjusted operating income of $166 million, a healthy 30% profit margin.
Based on Hinge’s 2024 actuals, upcoming global launch of the revamped algorithm, and expanded market reach, it’s reasonable to project that in 2025, Hinge could reach 1.8–1.9 million payers at an average revenue of about $31–32 per user, driving direct revenue up to roughly $680–700 million. All this from an app with a <5% success rate.
Positioning in a Sea of Sameness
Hinge’s tagline is brilliantly simple: "Designed to be Deleted." In this competitive market of apps that want to maximize screen time, Hinge positions itself as the app that wants users to succeed and leave. It’s so original and aligns directly with the user’s goal - finding someone meaningful enough to delete the app for.
Talk about competition, Tinder thrives on hookup culture with gamified swiping mechanics, Bumble empowers women to initiate conversation. But Hinge openly acknowledges the user’s ultimate desire. While Tinder and Bumble operate on swipe, match, ghost, repeat, Hinge sells itself as a solution to the problem that others created. It’s like an antidote of the dating-app fatigue. Its core functionality (profiles, photos, messaging) is fundamentally similar, but the positioning completely flips the perception. It speaks in calm, nurturing tones, the kind that tricks you into thinking you’re making rational choices. Its interface is clean, minimalist. No neon-colored signs, just soft colors, personality prompts, and the promise that you are a smart, relationship-minded adult rather than a dopamine-addicted cat in heat.
Hinge effectively signals that it values long-term happiness over short-term engagement, which makes people more willing to believe in the brand. The company doubles down on this theme across all its messaging, even creating a mascot ‘Hingie’ that celebrates its own deletion with cute self-destruction. The dark humor just reinforces Hinge’s authenticity and by daring to say “success means we disappear,” Hinge has set itself apart from the pack and strengthened its brand equity.
Marketing Creates Meaning
Hinge isn’t the only one that focuses on creating emotional loyalty.
De Beers’ “A Diamond is Forever” stands as the longest running marketing campaign of all time, having started in 1947. It’s successfully linked diamonds with eternal love and is responsible for making diamond engagement rings a culture.
Apple’s iconic silhouette iPod campaigns never mentioned storage capacity or battery life. They sold the feeling of dancing to your own soundtrack.
Nike’s “Just Do It” goes beyond shoes, becoming your best self, overcoming limits.
These campaigns work because they tap into something fundamentally human. They understand that people don’t make decisions based on features or specifications, alone. They make decisions based on how something makes them feel.
The Human Element That Can’t Be Engineered
Despite innovative products, countless tech startups remain bland and interchangeable in the public eye. The reason? They focus on what they do, not why they do it. Tech companies pour resources into engineering and user acquisition, but treat branding as an afterthought – maybe a logo here, a quirky Twitter (now X) voice there. Technical solutions solve functional problems but they’re not equipped to make people care. This leads to weak or inconsistent identities. A user might be unable to distinguish one SaaS tool from another because neither communicates a clear personality or mission. In fact, a lack of meaningful differentiation is a leading cause of startup failure.
In my career so far, I’ve seen a handful of brilliant products fail. They didn’t lack any technical excellence, but because nobody cared, they didn’t work. This highlights the common blindspot in startup culture. Founders and investors obsess over scalability and total addressable markets but rarely ask: “Will someone genuinely care enough to use this?”
Humans are wired for stories. Facts and features might pique interest, but stories stick in our minds and stir our emotions. In the battle for user engagement, storytelling is the secret weapon tech brands often underutilize. A compelling brand story gives users something to believe in and belong to. Consider how Hinge’s story (“we exist to help you find real love”) elevates it from the rest. Users who resonate with that mission feel a sense of alignment. That’s a far deeper engagement than one driven by habit or convenience. As one PR expert said, “people don’t want to be sold to; they want to hear a story” – a narrative that connects with their own needs and dreams.
When brands deploy storytelling, whether through their origin story, customer success stories, or even the way they frame problem-solution, they activate emotions that drive action. Research has shown that while information makes us aware, emotion is often what motivates decision-making and loyalty.
Lessons from Hinge
After all of this ruminating, this is what I know:
Align with a real human problem: Find the emotional pain point in your user’s life and make addressing it your rallying cry.
Dare to be different (even counterintuitive): Don’t be afraid of a value prop that seems to undermine your own usage metrics if it earns user trust.
Bake brand values into the product: Every touchpoint should echo your core story.
Harness social proof and stories: While humanizes the brand, it also provides evidence that you deliver on your promises.
Stay culturally tuned-in: By engaging with the zeitgeist (whether it’s pop culture or addressing societal shifts, like remote work), you ensure your brand feels relevant.
Full Circle Moment
That SATC moment felt full circle: a five-letter word for ‘to bring together’ had, indeed, brought me to the person I’d marry. That word, that brand - Hinge - will live rent-free in my head for years. It created a connection that went beyond the functionality of the product itself.
So, to all product builders out there: Build something that works. But more importantly - build something people care about. As Bryan Eisenberg says:
Facts tell, but stories sell.
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