Coffee Meets Bagel or “CMB” is an online dating app that prides itself on matching like-minded people without them needing to swipe through hundreds of profiles or hopeful suitors, unlike much of its competition in the dating app market.
The vision behind their distinctive app came from three ambitious sisters who initially launched this new dating platform in New York, Boston, and San Francisco.
It has since gained recognition worldwide and is slowly gaining a big name for itself.
Their growing idea gained traction and interest on the famous Shark Tank show in the United States and from the famed billionaire Mark Cuban.
Though they’re relatively new to the game or less commonly heard of in certain parts of the world, they’ve received plenty of accolades and have been featured in BuzzFeed, The New Yorker, and Refinery29.
CMB offers users a slow dating service with suitable, well-generated matches. Less constant swiping through incompatible profiles means that you get a better quality of people to focus on and potentially get to know better.
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How Does Coffee Meets Bagel Work?
There’s a wide variety of dating apps available in modern society that offer a similar style of features, but Coffee Meets Bagel is actually quite a different approach compared to the likes of Hinge, Bumble, and Tinder.
Along with their unique anti-swiping method, they help to initiate meaningful conversations and interesting connections, using what they call a “smart algorithm” that’s created from your selected criteria.
Using their smart algorithm, which continuously evolves, they’ll send you their selected matches or what they call ‘bagels’ every day at noon, where you can decide to either like and match or kindly and subtly pass.
So, you don’t need to spend all hours of the day searching through random prospects. Who has the time for that legwork anyway?
The number of suggested bagels you get sent every day varies, so some days you’ll receive more and other days you’ll receive less.
The app also allows you the capability of searching for potential matches that fit within your desired criteria and offer a premium account option with advanced tools. It’s a relatively simple platform to use and understand.
How To Set Up A CMB Profile
First things first, download the app from the Apple Store or Google Play. Like signing up for any dating platform, they’ll ask you for your phone number, email, and some personal details.
CMB also asks you what you’re looking for – is it something serious, something casual, or some kind of dating experience that you haven’t identified yet?
Once you select this, you’ll then need to input details such as where you’re located, your age, ethnicity, religious beliefs, and height.
Optionally, you can input work and education, should you wish to enhance your visibility or image.
Selecting Photos For Your Profile
Like most dating apps, they’ll ask you to upload photos, and according to them, five or more photos get liked 14% more and three-plus photos get liked 42% more.
There’s no doubt that choosing the right photos for your profile is an important aspect.
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A faraway photo where you’re fully covered, wearing massive sunglasses, and look somewhat like a tiny ant, for example, isn’t going to garner much interest from Mr. or Mrs. Right.
Luckily, CMB offers useful tips for profile photo do’s and don’ts on their app, so you can easily follow their well-guided advice straight from the source.
Is a mirror selfie showing off your strict fitness regime? Group photo flaunting your big network of friends? NOT recommended.
Filling Out Prompts
If you visit ‘Edit Profile’ and the ‘Prompts’ button, CMB will prompt you with a series of questions for you to answer.
Using these prompts gives you a chance to provide potential bagels a great first impression and a taste of your personality, humor, or interests. It also helps with the algorithm and matching like-minded people to you.
There are multiple questions to choose from, so you can select however many you wish to answer. They prompt you with questions like “You know you’re having a great first date when…” or “My perfect Sunday morning…”.
Don’t be afraid to add a bit of humor to these; they don’t have to be hard straight serious answers but are more so a tool to show off who you really are apart from just your favorable photos.
Sure, we’re all guilty of choosing profiles based on photos and visual traits, but with a strong detailed profile, personality can be an attractive draw as well.
Especially, when these showcase what you and someone else have in common.
Icebreakers
When editing your profile, you can also add icebreakers. For example, “I like to travel” or “My favorite color is red” (I’m sure you can think of something more creative and specific than those).
Once you’ve added those in, the app will then use those interesting facts to break the ice with some of your bagels.
How To Find Matches On Coffee Meets Bagel?
Ah, the big question you’ve probably been waiting for… how to actually find said ‘bagels’. Well, the app has four main tabs located at the bottom of the screen and each serves a particular purpose.
Here are the four tabs:
- Suggested
- Likes You
- Discover
- Chats
Your daily match suggestions show up on the ‘Suggested’ tab every day at noon.
Here you can choose whether or not you wish to match with a bagel and possibly start a conversation or respectfully decline the flattering request.
Friendly reminder – this app, unfortunately, isn’t a form of sorcery or alluring love spell magic, so naturally, not every suggestion you get is going to be your dream man or woman, but they certainly can be and are likely to match up to your deal-breaker preferences.
If you have a premium account, you can view everyone who’s liked you on the ‘Likes You’ tab.
It’s always great insight to see how well your profile is working and the obvious lineup of people who are initially intrigued by you. Right? Right?!
Then there’s the ‘Discover’ tab. Here you can see extra bagels that live near to you but may not meet your selected criteria or preferences that you set out for ‘Suggested’.
You can also use their filtering service on this tab to search for bagels in certain locations or with a specific height, age, degree, ethnicity, or other preference.
As for the ‘Chats’ tab and getting a meaningful conversation off the ground, more on this below.
How Messaging Works On Coffee Meets Bagel
Once you and your bagel have mutually liked each other, then comes the big bright opportunity to see how well you and your match communicate.
Either one of you can kickstart the conversation or just send a simple ‘Hey’ from the ‘Chats’ tab, and depending on the report between you two, the conversation style within the app is very open, though there is a bit of a timeline and extra push to take the conversion offline.
The chat tabs are only open for seven days. So, it’s within that time that you need to start a meaningful conversation and hopefully inspire the other bagel to give their contact information so that your chat can continue elsewhere or simply meet for a date.
Chats can be extended using Beans that you’ve either earned through various methods for free or that you’ve purchased on the app.
Beans work much like a points-based system, which allows you to unlock additional features depending on the value of beans you have.
So, it’s then up to you to really WOW your bagel within a certain timeframe and not miss your chance.
And I don’t mean in a shocking “I can’t believe they said that!” kind of way, but more that this is your time to truly shine and give your bagel a taste of your great personality. It’s here you can bring your best conversational skills and naturally hilarious one-liners.
With a premium account, you can also see how often matches send an introductory line, so you don’t have to wonder or worry whether or not you should make the first move.
There’s nothing to lose anyway, so if you’re interested, let them know and put yourself out there. They matched with you for a reason, right?
How The Coffee Meets Bagel Algorithm Works
Romance these days are bizarrely and perhaps unromantically becoming a story based on data or mysteriously designed algorithms, and to be honest, we all must adapt to this new and ever-changing digital dating world.
But, there’s really something helpful and genius about it too.
The coined ‘smart algorithm’ on CMB is quite a pristine and well-thought-out technology.
Within the app, you can select your dating preferences. Is it the height you care about? Education? Religious compatibility? Location? Or something else?
Depending on your preferred deal-breaker choices, your daily suggested matches are based on these, so if you’re not picky, the pool is big, but not necessarily going to provide you matches of distinct quality.
However, if you do iron out these preferences and think about who exactly you’re looking for, your pool lessens, but your suggested bagels are more likely to fit your ultimate criteria.
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It’s never a good thing to go into the dating world with a closed mindset, and yes it’s key to consider preferences carefully so you don’t dismiss a potential match who maybe lives slightly further afoot or is a year or two younger or older than favored, though it’s good to keep in mind that CMB is using these deal-breaker choices to formulate your version of the best of the best.
So, make sure that you select these preferences tactfully and don’t dismiss the ‘maybes’ right away.
Is Coffee Meets Bagel Free?
On the plus side, this app is completely free to download and to get your daily recommended matches or search through and send likes on the Discover page, though you can also pay for an advanced premium account that will give you access to the following convenient features:
- Seeing everyone who hit like on the ‘Likes You’ page
- Get eight more Likes on the Discover page, where they’ll notify others when you’re interested
- Unlock information about bagels (ie. whether they’re likely to send the first message or if they logged in recently)
- Read receipts, so you’re not left in the dark wondering if they’ve acknowledged what you said
- Send flowers and skip the line, so your profile shows up first to someone who’s caught your eye
- 15% more Beans (more on Beans below)
The good news is that there’s a 7-day free trial for this premium account at the moment, though you can pay for extra Beans ad hoc and choose different amounts.
As mentioned above, Beans will unlock extra features, such as extending chats, getting additional bagel matches, and much more.
When weighing your options, I would suggest first and foremost getting used to and understanding how the app works in free mode.
There’s an abundance of capabilities that you don’t need to pay for upfront or at all really if budget is a concern for you.
Once you wrap your head around the concept of the app or its usability and get comfortable in the shoes of your stand-out CMB profile, it certainly doesn’t hurt to give premium a try, it can be an advantageous pursuit.
Final Thoughts
Let’s be honest, online dating can be a rather vast and scary world to enter into, especially if you’re new to the game or haven’t played it in a while.
It comes with an expectation of vulnerability and likely, an undesirable and repeated knock to the old self-esteem.
It isn’t easy, it’s a leap into the unknown, and often, that feeling of uncertainty stems from bouts of anxiety, fear, nervousness, and other less-than-enjoyable emotions – fun!
Because of this, a lot of us remain in toxic relationship patterns or stagnantly positioned on the man cave couch with a fresh pint, all to avoid rejection and this whole daunting process.
Though the reality is, we still crave some form of companionship, we’re human, we have needs and companionship isn’t going to show up on our doorstep out of the blue, nor is a perfectly packaged partner going to magically appear wearing slutty lingerie on their 10 / 10 physique – sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
As the old saying goes, “If you don’t try, you’ll never know,” so if finding love is on your agenda, don’t give up trying quite yet, and give CMB a chance to WOW you.
With more free time spent at home lately, there’s never been a better or more relevant time to draw your attention to the wonderful world of online dating apps and to explore all of the available platforms on offer.
Whether you like it or not, putting yourself out there and succeeding takes effort, but that alone isn’t always enough to get you started.
Finding your perfect person also takes a lot of balls and a brave, swift exit out of your comfort zone.
With an app like CMB, you can comfortably get out of that comfort zone and take advantage of their suggested matching technique.
You can also broaden your horizons from popular dating apps and give their modern matchmaking/dating app service a go.
Not only is CMB a unique and helpful dating app choice, but its whole purpose is also to spark genuine conversations and match people together who share common interests.
CMB’s method of creating curated and meaningful matches based on their ideal criteria is actually quite a brilliant idea, but like any form of online dating app, it’s essential that you learn to use the app properly and utilize its helpful tools, in order to fully benefit and achieve the best kind of results.
I suggest reading more about the company itself and its services on its website www.coffeemeetsbagel.com.
Here you can watch their video on how it all began, view some user testimonials from people who actually found love on the app, read their detailed dating blog with relevant advice, and listen to a few of their podcast episodes.
The Coffee Meets Bagel blog and podcast talk about everything from useful dating hacks, to modern relationships, virtual date ideas, and much more. Reading or listening to these will also give you a feel for their company and more specifically, further insight into their app.
So, online dating doesn’t have to be dull or the same old, same old swiping extravaganza. It’s good to try something different, and I believe that’s what Coffee Meets Bagel offers the average person who’s ultimately looking to find some form of love or true companionship.
I hope this guide to Coffee Meets Bagel has proved some helpful or educational tips for the app and your online dating journey. You never know; you could be just one suggested bagel away from finding what or whom you’re truly looking for.
