Tinder doesn’t seem like the most natural place to find female friendship, but a Tinder hack in 2014 led to a global social network for women called GirlCrew.
It all started one Friday night in 2014 when Elva Carri wanted to go out dancing but all her friends were either tired or busy. As there weren’t other friendship apps at the time, she turned to the dating app Tinder.
Elva changed her gender to male on the app, so she would only appear to other women, and put up a message saying she was female and looking for some platonic dancing buddies. She had no idea she would quickly garner more than 100 matches.
As Tinder was restricted to one-on-one messaging, it was going to be very time-consuming messaging the 100 matches to plan the night out. As a result, Elva shared a link to a closed Facebook group with her new matches, inviting them to join that to plan the night out. And GirlCrew was born.
By switching to a group, everyone could chat together, create events and get to know one another. It was so easy to do, and such a simple concept to grasp that the first event happened without Elva’s input at all. In fact, she’d left her computer to do some jobs around the house and when she came back the first event had been arranged.
From that initial group GirlCrew continued to grow with new members joining every day. Having gained lots of new friends, and a jam-packed social calendar, Elva was going to need help, so she teamed up with Aine Mulloy and myself, and the three of us began growing GirlCrew groups all over the world.
We didn’t have the money or technical knowledge initially to build our own platform, so we continued adding groups on Facebook, using that platform to build out our idea and test if it could be a business before we began developing our own platform. By the end of 2015, we had hit 20,000 members, across four continents.
We all kept our full-time jobs and worked on GirlCrew part-time, trying out various revenue streams, and launching in new cities across Australia, the US, the UK, Europe, Canada and parts of Asia.
By 2016, we knew the time had come for us to raise money, launch our own app, and go full-time with GirlCrew. Raising money is not an easy process. A lot of people said “no” to us. It was difficult as they would give different reasons each time. One investor would say no because we didn’t have a certain thing in place. We would put that in place, and then another investor would say no because we had it.
Some investors wanted us to focus on growth, while others were more interested in revenue and profits. We learned that you can’t please everyone, so you must follow the right strategy for you.
We raised over £650,000 from investors including LinkedIn chief executive Jeff Weiner, Reddit director of data Joe Gallagher, Wrigley chief marketing officer Orla Mitchell and Hazel Hutchinson, managing director of Aegis Corporate Strategy.
GirlCrew now has its own app on iOS and Android, as well as a desktop platform. Women simply join the group for their area such as Edinburgh, Glasgow or Aberdeen, and they can see what events are happening, read posts and comments from other members, write posts themselves and create events.
They can also join topic groups such as careers, travel, bloggers or entrepreneurs. In the topic groups, members share tips, advice and knowledge on everything from getting a new job to getting more followers on Instagram for a business.
The GirlCrew community has now surpassed more than 100,000 members. You can make friends at home, but also abroad, if you happen to be travelling for work, or going on holidays to another city.
Related posts
Interviews
Comment
Please mind the gap… or healthcare may fall
Imagine sharing a lengthy train journey with others. From beginning to end, imagine how often you might hear ‘mind the gap’ messages about embarking and disembarking safely. Picture how navigating…
Women Lead: My journey from Dragons’ Den to Silicon Valley
Following her appearance on Dragons’ Den, Sheila Hogan, serial entrepreneur, founder and chief executive of digital legacy vault, Biscuit Tin, shares her experience of her time in the Den and…
Look anywhere – the future is ‘aged tech’. But Scotland needs to be more adventurous
Scottish Care, as the representative body of independent social care providers of care home, care at home and housing support services, has been working over several years with colleagues in…
Women Lead: Engineer turned entrepreneur
We are always fascinated by other people’s stories. It’s how we connect, grow and learn from each other. Until very recently I always felt like I didn’t have a story to tell. Who…
‘Women – together we will change the dynamic in tech’
I was inspired to start a career in technology when personal computers were in their infancy and the internet decades away. My childhood dream of becoming a scientist was shaped by…
It’s time to change the future of tech apprenticeships – and we need your help
In his latest exclusive column for Futurescot, Ross Tuffee, chair of the Skills Development Scotland (SDS) Digital Economy Skills Group, calls on tech employers to get involved in shaping the…
What AI difference a year makes
Amazingly, it’s been one year since the publication of Scotland’s AI Strategy. And what a year it has been. Demanding but rewarding, with good progress made and great foundations laid…
International Women’s Day: It’s time to harness power of women in technology
As we celebrate International Women’s Day, I hope to be part of a future where barriers that prevent women from competing on a level playing field in the work environment…