If you haven’t seen the Modern Love TV episode about his life, Justin McLeod’s life story goes something like this.

Guy meets girl in college. They date, on and off, for years. They leave college, breaking up and parting ways forever. A bunch of life stuff happens. Guy struggles with addiction. Guy gets his life back on track. Four years on, guy reaches out to girl again. Too late, she’s fallen in love with someone else and living on the other side of the world. Guy is heartbroken. Guy writes to her on her birthday every year. He never gets a response. Guy creates a dating app. Guy tells the story about his heartbreak to a stranger, who tells him to drop everything and get the girl back. He does. They make it work. 14 years after they met, they say ‘I do’.

On the face of it, Justin’s love story is as far from ‘textbook’ for a millennial as you can get.

Hinge CEO shares advice on dating, and how heartbreak led to ‘the dating app designed to be deleted’

At a time when the grand narrative of people’s relationships often start and end with, “We met on Tinder” or, “We matched on Bumble”, or “I thought her Hinge profile was cute”; Justin’s love story is all about fate, regret, and second chances.

But if you ask Justin, the CEO of Hinge – one of the world’s most popular and successful dating apps – his modern romance easily could have played out in the context of online matchmaking.

“When you think about it, how you meet is point 0.1 per cent of your relationship, right? It’s just that very beginning and then after that, I think everything’s the same. Continue reading →