I am talking to Kim Kaplan today, Founder and CEO of the Snack dating app. Kim joins us to discuss the inspiration, the journey, and what the future holds for Snack.
Snack is a video-first dating app that combines the best of Tik Tok and Tinder to create a more authentic dating experience. Once you match with someone, their videos will appear in your feed and you have a chance to get to know them before reaching out to contact them. It’s an opportunity to be your authentic self and to engage with others in a more meaningful way by asking questions, showcasing your interests and your quirks! Kim reminds you that if you do choose to meet up with someone, always make sure to meet in a public place and tell others where you are going.
Kim’s tells us about the moment of inspiration that led her on this journey or creation and how to process rolled out from idea to launch. She tells us there’s a whole generation that has grown up with access to video content creation and it just made sense to use that aspect. Her past experience working with Tinder and other dating apps meant she knew how difficult the dating app world is and in the beginning, doing her research, she actually asked people to talk her out of it instead of the other way around. In March 2020, she decided to take the leap to raise funds , then the pandemic happened. After postponing until September to take extra thinking time, Kim secured 3.5 million on funding in just 3 weeks and her and was launched by February 2021.
The app itself is a constant work in progress, informed by user experience and feedback. Kim’s advise to others: if you are worried about putting out something that isn’t perfect, that is your sign to just get something simple out there. For Kim, the learning process and building her team has been the best part of the experience. We talk about the joys and the pain points and the challenges of scaling through growth while navigating a pandemic and a remote workforce.
To end the episode, Kim discusses taking inspiration to momentum, transparency with your team, and getting ideas out of your head and into the world.
Connect with Kim:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlykaplan/?originalSubdomain=ca
Find out more about Snack:
Website: https://www.thesnackapp.com/
Snack in the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/snack-video-dating/id1545836962
