Dawoon, Arum, and Soo Kang are changing the way online dating works for women with their app called Coffee Meets Bagel. The sisters grew up in an entrepreneurial family and all had ample experience in the business world. Dawoon worked in investment banking, Arum received her MBA from Harvard University, and Soo was a successful graphic designer in the fashion industry. They decided to combine their expertise and solve a pain they saw in the online dating market. Many of their friends felt that dating apps were oversaturated with men and geared toward the way men want to date online. They created Coffee Meets Bagel as a way to connect online through meaningful conversation. The app is unique from Tinder and Bumble because it specifically selects up to 6 bagels (or matches) for women every day through their algorithm that matches couples based on multiple similar interests so they only see matches that are highly relevant. Essentially, Coffee Meets Bagel connects people through similarities, not location or looks. To date, there are more than 70,000 couples who met on Coffee Meets Bagel and that number continues to grow.

One of the most impressive things about these entrepreneurs is that they were offered $30 million dollars by Mark Cuban when they pitched their idea on Shark Tank, yet they declined the offer. The Kang sisters used this offer as a confirmation that their idea was good and it had a huge potential for success, but they do not regret turning the offer down. They wanted to be in control of the app themselves. Being female tech entrepreneurs in this day and age has had challenges, but the Kang sisters have demonstrated that knowledge, expertise, and the ability to identify and fix pains in a market can have a huge impact and payoff and they wanted to develop this app on their own. They were able to raise over $11 million dollars in venture funding which enabled them to start and continue to grow their app.

Learn more about Coffee Meets Bagel here.