How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps

honored to be on a product management

podcast for a person who doesn't believe

product management is real we're already

already getting into the hot takes you

launched TBH went viral you end up

selling it to Facebook what was the

Insight that helped you come up with

this is a big idea that we should try I

looked on the App Store and the number

one app in the United States was an app

called saraha but the entire app was in

Arabic like the strongest signal that

you could ever have that people want

something this is insane I did not know

this whole story so we launched this app

it immediately took off servers started

crashing I looked at our numbers and I'm

like we will be number one in the United

States in like six days a tip that

you're sharing here is look for lat and

demand where people are trying to obtain

a particular value and going through a

very distortive process if you can

actually crystallize what their

motivation is you can have this kind of

intense adoption I I didn't know you're

actually a product manager at Facebook

the thing I didn't real realiz as a

product manager in a large tech company

is there is very little product

management that you do they're mainly

just writing a documents and then kind

of being the team secretary and running

around getting approvals but products

Live and Die in the pixels you should be

designing the hierarchy the pixels the

flows everything that's on you at some

point you started tweeting like hey I'm

working on you app everyone was going

nuts I saw stat that you made $11

million in sales 10 million downloads

the thing that is hard to really

understand is it is absolute chaos to

keep the thing online I was sleeping 3

hours a day for 3 months our team was

also Relentless though they would come

over to my house 9:00 a.m. stay until

midnight and just do that 7 days a week

is there anything else that's just like

this is something that is probably going

to help you with your app with certainty

if you're good at your job you can make

an app grow and go viral over the years

of building all these apps I've accured

all these growth hacks that still nobody

knows about

[Music]

today my guest is Nikita beer Nikita has

built launched and helped get more apps

to the top of the App Store than any

human I've ever come across he sold his

first big hit TBH to Facebook for over

$30 million he sold his second big app

gas to Discord for many millions more he

did this all with a tiny team and very

little funding he's also helped dozens

of Founders and apps and as an adviser

or investor to companies like flow

citizen be real locket and wealth simple

and many more today he spends his time

advising companies on file growth

strategies design feedback structuring

their product development process and a

lot more what I love about Nikita is

that he has very strong opinions about

how to build successful products that

are rooted in him actually doing the

work over the past decade to see for

himself what works and what doesn't

Nikita has been the single most

requested guest on this podcast and

you'll soon see why this episode is

packed with tactics and stories and

lessons that I am sure will leave you

wanting more more if you want to work

with Nikita on your app you can actually

book his time at intro. c/ Nikita beer

and if you enjoy this podcast don't

forget to subscribe and follow it in

your favorite podcasting app or YouTube

it's the best way to avoid missing

future episodes and helps the podcast

tremendously with that I bring you

Nikita

beer Nikita thank you so much for being

here welcome to the podcast thanks for

having me I'm excited to to dive in I'm

also I feel uh honored to be on a

product management podcast for a person

who doesn't believe product management

is real we're ready ready getting into

the hot takes uh we're definitely going

to chat about wait and you said not real

okay I thought you were gonna say not uh

not useful okay this is good okay let's

put a pin in that I think we think this

I think everyone already feels this I

think it's gonna be a very special

conversation I've been looking forward

to chatting you for a long time and

there's so much that I want to ask you

the way that I'm thinking we frame this

convers ation is we go through the story

behind the apps that you've built or

helped build that have hit the top of

the App Store and basically hear the

inside story of what it took to build

those apps and to make them successful

and then through that try to extract as

many lessons as we can about what it

takes to build a successful viral

consumer app these days how does that

sound to you sounds amazing and a lot of

it was luck but a lot of it was uh very

very tactical work that uh went into it

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n.com

Lenny First I want to start with

something that I think very few people

know about you so the first thing that

you built the first product that you

built was uh very different from what

you do these days and it was a product

called potify which something I actually

would really want it helps you decide

who to vote for based on how it would

impact your life can you just share a

bit about just that part of your life

and why you decided to Pivot away from

that into consumer apps yeah so when I

was in college I was really interested

in this kind of uh thing that American

voters do which is like they they vote

against their own Financial

self-interest like people in New York

and San Francisco you know vote for

democrats for higher taxes people in

Kansas uh vote for Republicans for low

taxes and not uh and they you know they

make less money and so that fewer

government benefits and I wanted build

this tool that would help communicate

the financial impacts of these policy

proposals of presidents and I I built it

in like my last year of college and we

it was just a web app that we put out

and it would it would calculate their

tax proposals the government benefits

that they were proposing and you would

enter in your basic personal information

how many kids you have uh if uh your age

and then it would just tell tell you in

dollars what the impact would be and it

also tell you uh we simulated those

policies also against uh the tax returns

of every zip code so you could see how

it impacts your community it went super

viral um like I think very few people

thought of politics that way and I think

we got like four million uh users on it

uh during that season of the during that

election and like it was just a kind of

like a project that we raised some grant

money for ended up feeding into this

company that we uh spun up and that was

called outline um because we had a bunch

of governments reach out to us asking

can you build this for our budget so the

governor of Massachusetts actually

reached out and I I flew out there to

meet with them and uh that was going to

be our first customer and so I we uh we

raised some money we got a we w a

government contract and uh we joined

techstars uh the accelerator

and we ended up getting uh we got a

contract in the pipeline with the Obama

Administration uh and then we uh we got

this uh contract and we started building

it and the government shutdown happened

in the middle of like as we were

building it and we had one of our

contracts cancel and I realized like I I

actually really don't like selling

software to governments and my core

competency all along was making things

that go viral on the internet uh like

that was that was what we had built not

this policy simulation tool and so you

know we we went to our investors and we

said look this uh this isn't actually

what uh we're excited about doing

anymore um and we we offered to give the

money back uh and said we're going to be

building consumer apps and here's a few

ideas that we have none of them took the

money back um and so then we spent the

next

uh like four or five years building a

variety of different kind of consumer uh

consumer apps so we we had a few like

kind of mild successes during the course

of those four to five years and one of

them was a uh an app called five Labs

that ingested your Facebook posts and

determine your personality based on the

language you use uh and it used this

exact same model that Cambridge

analytica used and that was super viral

I think you know we had like tens of

millions of profiles in it and this all

it went viral in like three days and so

we raised some more money based off the

success of that

and we we started focusing a lot more on

mobile after that first app five labs

and we we launched you know uh basically

every type of app you can imagine we

launched mapping apps chat apps event

meet up apps any like basically every

kind of consumer app on mobile that you

could think of and that actually helped

us kind of build a muscle to understand

what people want and how to actually

make things grow and how to test them

and over time we started uh focusing

more on teens and a lot of people ask

why Silicon Valley is so fixated on

building apps for teens and one of the

reasons is their habits are pretty

malleable like as we get older we like

kind of get kind of fixed fixed into our

our habits of using certain

communication products and we don't

really adopt new things and then the

other thing that we discovered was that

adults don't really you know invite

people to new apps we found that as a

user got older from age 13 to 18 like

the number of people that they invite to

an app just declines almost

exponentially and finally the and the

most important thing is they see each

other every day and that is so critical

like consumer app developers sometimes

say smokers are great for uh like

targeting an audience because they

actually like hang out you know

serendipitously a lot outside of you

know buildings and so but not not to say

like social apps are cigarettes I I I

don't really like that metaphor but just

on the note of you talking about white

teens are important I I have this quote

actually from you that I love where

building on the point you made that for

every social app I've ever built the

number of invitations sent per user

drops 20% for every additional year of

age from 13 to 18 so if you build for

adults expect to acquire every user with

ads and I love that you have a very

clear euristic of per year the amount of

people they invite to the app is 20%

lower if your users aren't inviting

people to your app uh you're going to

have to find another way to uh to

acquire them and that most likely means

ads and uh if if if you're targeting uh

older cohorts like adults you're going

to have to uh raise a huge amount of

venture capital to finance that user

acquisition Pipeline and it's going to

be extraordinarily expensive as a seed

stage startup it's going to be basically

impossible to uh to to grow that uh user

base especially to get density if you

need uh uh actual Network effects among

users so basically you're building this

uh help me decide who to vote for app

that turned into a real business with

like government contracts coming to you

trying to help you pushing you to build

something that you end up realizing I

don't want to be doing this why am I

building this app selling government

contracts and so what you did is you and

this is a really interesting lesson to

take aways you just realize I don't want

to be doing this investors don't force

me to be working on this I'm going to

stop this I'm going to go work on some

other stuff that I'm actually excited

about that I think has a bigger chance

of success and that's where you

transition to this startup Studio Studio

where you're just trying a bunch of apps

and I think it was called Midnight Labs

you said something like that right yeah

awesome so basically I think that's an

really interesting Insight of just like

if you're working on something you don't

enjoy you can change that you can pivot

you can tell your investors I want to

work on something else uh is there

anything there that you want to add

along those lines it was really hard for

us to uh pivot to mobile I think that

was one of the most challenging things

for me personally because it was a

completely different Paradigm like I

actually have been building web apps

since I was 12 years old and I I you

know I I I built a uh full eCommerce

business selling pirated games on the

web and I knew everything about like

growing a website but as I as we pivoted

to mobile I I had to like recalibrate my

whole brain on how to how to do that

mobile apps have such a uh low margin

for error when it comes to designing

them because I I I I have this like

dogmatic view uh that like every tap on

a mobile app is a miracle for you as a

product developer because users will

turn and bounce to the their next app

very quickly uh if you actually sit

behind someone and watch them use their

phone they actually switch between apps

at a pretty high frequency so every tap

that you get every single one is so

scarce that you should be optimizing

everything and so I had to change my

whole brain when we started pivoting to

mobile and building these mobile apps uh

and it took a lot of failures like we

you know we we uh for like 14 of the

apps that we launched were basically

Duds and then we started fixating on

teens uh and and building apps for them

and eventually we figured out an

interesting horis for identifying

consumer product opportunities that

ultimately led us to TBH you spent four

or five years trying a bunch different

ideas I think people see this headline

and we'll get into TB of just like n

weeks after launch sells for $30 million

to Facebook and everyone's like oh okay

that's amazing I want that for my life

nobody knows there's this like four or

five years of trying you said 15

different apps uh before you got there

learning the things that actually work

and don't work we built like 15 apps

over that the course of that pivot uh to

Consumer and we built apps for like

every single app you know map apps uh

chat apps uh you know to-do lists we

just built every type of consumer app

you could possibly think of and also we

built for every audience too we built

for college students we built for you

know post college and it was always very

difficult to get the Flywheel spinning

for anyone after like 22 years old that

that was like the cut off of when uh

people just have give up on adopting new

products and and that was a kind of like

it took us a few years to really

internalize that um a lot of failures to

realize no one needs another app after

that age so the thing that you found

there which is really interesting

because most people are building for

people older than 22 that's like a

profound Insight you had there uh uh

like every consumer app I see is like

trying to build for adults and your

lesson there is basically if you're

trying to do that you're probably going

to need to raise money and spend a lot

of money and PID outs yeah and most

likely you'll never get network effects

there's actually an interesting study

like many years ago that uh like some

academics in Spain did uh I think it was

in Spain uh and they looked at how many

people you text you know per year of

your life and it goes up like very

quickly from 14 to 18 it Peaks around 21

so it's growing the number of people you

text is growing up until about 21 and

then it just Falls it collapses uh and

then it comes back up in uh at end of

life and there's a few reasons all this

happens but uh basically you know once

you exit College you kind of reduce the

number of contacts you have your daily

contacts once you get married it's even

fewer and then when as you get older you

know you uh and your your kids start

having kids and you become a grandparent

you start texting again more or you join

a retirement home but if you're building

a product with network effects that's a

communication tool you want to be on

that UPS upward curve of adding

connections to your social graph because

then the urgency to connect is higher so

if you really want to actually innovate

at the edges of communication products

you you you really have to Target that

cohort that has the highest urgency to

communicate and and that's teens I love

that you found these things out not

through just like research and not

through just thinking it was through

actual trying things over and over and

over and trying different audiences

trying different experiences like a lot

of people see your advice and they like

how does he know it's just like you've

done all these things yourself you've

seen them you're like sitting there

watching teens use these apps and I

think very few people actually do that

and they just come up with these

theories that aren't based on empirical

evidence yeah so we we we got pretty

good at um at uh building these apps I

think our first mobile app took us about

a year and then our last one took us

about two weeks we also got very good at

testing apps and the most important

thing that I often instruct teams to do

is to develop a reproducible testing

process and that will actually influence

the probability of your success more

than anything it's so unpredictable

whether a consumer product idea will

work and so if you actually focus more

more on your process for taking many

shots at bat that that's what actually

reduces the risk more than anything and

so we figured out ways to seed apps into

uh into schools we also like during the

course of that company we figured out

how to seed it into Affinity groups you

know hobbyists things like that so we

were on app number 15 uh you know we're

a lot of

failures um during during the course of

this uh

company and I remember a lot of our team

members were like I I kind of want to

leave uh I think this is it for me and

uh one one of our key team members uh

actually put in their two weeks notice

uh the day before we launch our our

final app we were also running you know

we were getting kind of low on money I

was tired um

and I uh I called our lawyer uh to ask

how do you dissolve a company I met

messaged a few mentors saying like uh I

one people that have been through it and

I said you know what are the steps to to

do this um and then I I I had a

conversation on the way out with that

that team member that wanted to leave

and I said you know I understand uh what

but what if the app actually starts

charting on the App Store and I he said

what are the chances of that uh you know

it's it's you know you know that's not

going to happen and I said sure okay um

so uh we we launched this this app and

it was you know a polling app tbh and it

immediately uh took off in the school

that we seated it into uh in in uh

Georgia we picked the one school that

had the earliest start date in the

United States because we needed to

launch as soon as possible given this

state of the company um and it just I

think it spread to you know 40% of the

school downloaded it in the first 24

hours and it rapidly spread to the

neighboring schools and suddenly I was

like oh we might have something here um

and uh servers started crashing and

watching it climb the charts I I think

within I I I I looked at our numbers and

I'm like we will be number one in the

United States in like six days uh and

then I I looked at our Amazon bill and

it was like 12,000 I looked at our bank

account it said 150,000 and I'm like

okay these two numbers don't really add

up um so I I quickly had to put together

a funding round and I told our my team

can you guys just pause for like two

months and just like really focus on

this I think I could probably sell this

thing and so it turned into a a pretty

uh competitive bidding process actually

um there there was a uh really really

great moment uh where uh there was one

of the acquirers uh or one of the biders

was based in La had told me to fly down

um and they told me to fly down that day

uh so I got on a plane went to the

airport without a ticket showed up and

when we were rolling out this app we

were doing a state byst state rollout

strategy where every state was Geo

fenced and we hadn't launched California

until that morning and I arrived uh

at this uh this company in uh this

founder in LA's house um and he said uh

you know show me the metrics you guys

are like what number four or something

and since we just launched California

it's a big State uh I said no no no

we're actually number one we're the

number one app in the United States and

I said yeah show me the metrics and our

CTO was a published Eric Hazard uh he a

published author in mapping uh and so he

he created an amazing dashboard that

could show realtime installs on a map

and it was around 400m and school had

just gotten out uh so I zoomed in on the

Block that we were having that meeting

and the entire block was lit up with

installs all around us and so then

that's what got the kind of uh the ball

rolling on a uh you know was it was a

really uh really like cinematic moment

of uh you know what showing something

that you created that literally just

took over the entire neighborhood around

you that's insane I that's goingon to be

in the movie of Nikita beer in the

future okay so a couple questions here

so one you predicted the chart it would

hit number one how do you what does it

take to hit number one like what is the

number you're looking at is it some

number downloads to get the number one

in the App Store uh it fluctuates it

used to be like like a 100 th 80 to

100,000 installs uh but now you have

these companies that are just spending

extraordinary amounts on ads and or

injecting it into one of their other

apps so between threads teu and all

these other apps that are kind of

spending on acquisition and all that uh

some days it's up to like 300,000 and

that's per day yeah oh man amazing okay

at the peak of TBH uh we were

getting 360,000 per day okay the other

two things I want to spend a little time

on here before we move on to the next

app is uh what was the Insight that

helped you come up with this is a big

idea that we should try and then was the

insight into how to spread this so

virally and I know that one is really

clever after building all these apps we

had these kind of like uh lingering

users that stuck around and would share

feedback with us uh on our next app and

so there were a couple uh like there's

this senior in high school that I would

send screenshots of our products and um

he told me about this trend called TBH

that kids were playing on Snapchat where

they would post post an image of a bunch

of emojis and it would say uh like I

like you you're smart uh your style is

great and you would just reply to the

story with the Emoji of what you felt

and I was like this is kind of weird uh

you post this on your story and then

people send you feedback and I'm like so

teens are looking for this uh this like

venue like this vehicle for disclosure

uh essentially and I'm like that that's

kind of cool I wonder if you could make

that into an app we like had sketched

some things out and uh as we were kind

of sketching things out I looked on the

App Store and the number one app in the

United States was an app called saraha

and it was for sending anonymous

messages uh by adding a link to your

Snapchat story but the thing that was

most interesting was the entire app was

in Arabic the number one app in the

United States was in Arabic and that was

one of the most uh like the strongest

signal that you could ever have that

people want something and so when I meet

with Founders I often tell them like the

way you should be searching for product

ideas is this concept of latent demand

where people are trying to obtain a

particular value and going through a

very distortive process to obtain that

value and if you can actually

crystallize what their motivation is and

build a product

around and and clear up what they're

trying to actually do you can have this

kind of uh intense adoption and uh when

we saw what people were doing with

saraha I I also looked at some of the

tweets and comments on it a lot of

people were receiving negative messages

and so I what I saw with the game that

kids were playing on Snapchat tbh and

then Saha I realized just people want to

know good about themselves and they

don't want like these bullying messages

that they're getting on these anonymous

apps and I was like well what if instead

of actually typing what you wanted to

say about somebody you uh just answered

polls and we authored those polls so

that we ensured everything would be

always be positive

and I mean in the back of my head I

always knew anonymous apps go viral but

they always lead to like like these

awful news stories of kids committing

suicide you know self harm and all that

and so I was like I'll never build

anything like that um but uh when we

came up with this new mechanic where you

could only say positive things through

polls you know who has the best smile

who's most likely to be president and

then you receive it uh and it's it's

Anonymous but your name is selected what

we discovered a couple of things is it

made users feel a lot better it actually

solved what they were trying to do and

they also sent a much higher volume of

messages and so it was it was literally

explosive adoption like one school I was

looking at they sent

450,000 messages in the first seven days

of adopting it and when you look at day

one like volume of messages sent on a

messaging app uh you're lucky if people

send like three or four or something but

we were sending like 60 and we we

couldn't even handle it so we had to

like we had to geofence the app because

it we we needed to scale our servers

which is actually a pretty controversial

decision inside of our company because

it like why would you turn off something

that's working but I at my core I knew

like if it's working at this many you

know in individual

schools we could just relaunch it any

time and it'll just it'll it'll go viral

so uh uh let's let's let's regroup and

figure out what's happening here and

then and relaunch so you keep talking

about how one viral and crazy grew like

crazy I know that there's like a little

trick that you came up with to help it

spread can you just briefly talk about

what you did there to help it spread so

quickly within a school I I think you're

referring to uh there's like a buzzfeed

memo that uh a memo that was leaked to

BuzzFeed while I was at at uh Facebook

uh and the the main thing we found was

like to to be convinced to download an

app you need to see it you need to see

like the marketing message like three

times or so uh so you basically need to

saturate an area with every kind of

marketing you can you know so we ran ads

uh at targeted at this uh a particular

school to to to when we were seating and

testing these apps and we also followed

people creating a dedicated Instagram

account that went to that school um

because we I we learned that uh high

schoolers identify their school in their

bio so it says rhs on their bio and so

that was how we tried to get uh the

entire school to adopt synchronously we

would we'd follow them and then accept

the followback a big misunderstanding

though and I I get this DM a lot of

people like I'm trying to replicate your

strategy we've just done it at 15

schools and it's it's not working

anymore this is not the way we grew the

app this is how we tested apps and that

there's it's really it's it's a little

bit nuanced there that's an important

Nuance because you need to get a a

enough intensity of adoption and density

for a social network to start to get the

Flywheel spinning but the app should

grow by itself after that and people

think we just went like from school to

school following every kid on it like

you can't that that's totally

unrealistic but for like the first

hundred users yes that's how we got them

and that allowed us to know whether the

product was working or not like we we

could get enough people on it and then

we could with conv ition say that

whether the app had legs and we wouldn't

have this kind of uncertainty like oh

did they did they add enough friends did

we get enough people on it did they

reach the aha moment because that you

need friends to get on so we we wanted

to eliminate that confounding variable

and so we we figured out a way to just

get a bunch of people to adopt at once

and that's one thing I encourage a lot

of Founders to do is figure out a way to

eliminate all those potentially

confounding variables uh so you can know

immediately whether something's working

or not you never want to walk away from

a an experiment or test and say well uh

maybe the the E execution was bad

because it takes a lot of energy to

mobilize a team to test something and

you really want to make sure your tests

actually are provide signal so your

advice here is when you're testing

something test the best possible version

of what that could be whether it takes

manual work or something that is never

going to scale like test the ideal

because that'll tell you even if this

could be the best possible version uh do

people actually care yeah we would try

to get the like uh an entire school to

adopt just to know like uh if if

everyone had 10 friends would would

would they actually derive value from

this out we also did other things like

you know and I recommend all companies

do this is uh put live chat customer

support in your app like like 24 hours a

day and it sounds insane it's like that

the whole point of tech is you you don't

need to do that that's the whole point

of a of a software but

uh then users get this white glove

experience and that eliminates another

confounding variable like did they think

they were their problems were solved or

they're they're treated well but most of

all one of the reasons I actually

recommend people put live chat in their

app is it's the best uh vehicle for

getting feedback and do doing user

research because user will literally

tell you the problem they're having um

so we we had uh our person that was

running this uh same as Michael gueras

he's he's done it for all my companies

actually he's the the the community and

customer support rep he would uh paste

any interesting feedback into slack and

then we would be like oh this this this

uh user has a great idea we should

consider turning that into a feature um

so you really want your finger on the

pulse as you roll these things out and

uh so you can get a sense for uh what's

working what isn't and also make users

feel great and make sure at the end uh

they they promote your app positively to

their peers I love that piece of advice

okay so to close out the TB

chapter is there anything else that you

think is important for people to know or

any other lasting lessons from that part

of your journey that you bring with you

to new apps that you're building today I

think the the thing that is hard to

really really understand for firsttime

Founders that hit breakout success with

a consumer product is how how draining

and how uh spread thin you get because

everything breaks everything that you

built needs to be substituted

uh almost every three days and I I can

just like give you example like we were

just talking about this customer support

system that we had the first system

broke after 3 days the next one broke s

days later we had to replace it with a

different one that could scale even

better and if you think about that on

every dimension of the company um it is

absolute like chaos to keep the thing

online uh as as it scales up and so you

have to be ruthless with prioritization

as something scales up uh and put out

the largest fires first because uh I I

that was something that I I didn't

really uh fully understand is how uh how

how how uh many things go wrong and if

we didn't geofence the app it would

there there would be no way we would

have been able to keep keep that thing

online because that gave us some slack

to uh control growth this is a good

example of when people ask like hey this

my app have product Market fit I think

this is an example of this is what it

looks like when things are breaking

every 3 days when you have to geofence

it to keep it from crashing a lot of

people ask me like what are the metrics

for uh what's the Benchmark for product

Market fit and this this founder that

I'm friends with name is Roger Dicky uh

he had he he told me aot one time um if

your products working you'll know uh and

there if there's any uncertainty it's

not working and it really is a binary

when it comes to uh consumer products um

people are going to be fighting to get

into it and you you'll find new measures

that you've never heard of like are our

metric was hourly actives per day not

daily active users hourly active users

so you'll you'll you'll start seeing

that and it'll be abundantly obvious

what product Market fit is what you you

you'll know when you see it is the

bottom line okay so you launch

TBH goes viral start getting offers from

companies nine weeks later after launch

you end up selling it to Facebook what

was it like selling your company and

then what was it like working at

Facebook which you worked at for four

years I was not expecting that when I

was looking your LinkedIn so yeah what

was it like selling what was it like

working in Facebook selling your company

is one of the most draining processes

you could ever go through as a Founder

when when we met with Facebook they told

me they have uh 80 people assigned to

this deal um and uh I'm like I have I

have one one person it's just me no uh

and they were like the SWAT team of m&a

uh and the funniest part was you know

they they wanted to meet the team as

well and so they they came out to our

office in Oakland which is a dingy old

office like that I got for $1,800 a

month that was our rent for the office

and they arrive and uh they they walk in

there's uh two engineers and one

designer and me and they're just like

this is this is the whole company this

is the number one app in the United

States like yeah this is it and when

when we went there when we arrived we

saw we joined the youth team which was

about like I don't know like 150 people

uh just for this one division of of

Facebook uh and it was like it was my

first

job that uh I effectively that I've ever

had when they told me my title uh they

said I would be a product manager um

like I I was like okay I I I don't I

don't know exactly what that is but uh

yeah I guess that's what I do and uh I I

arrive and then I get access to a

workplace system uh where you know

people post all the things they're

working on and I I realized it's like

kind of like this almost uh academic

environment for social networks like

social network development it's like the

Harvard of social networks like like of

the uh I was reading all these studies

that people were doing on like oh if we

change that this is the impact to

retention in da and I was just uh I was

so impressed like there's a whole

science here and uh a lot of the stuff

that we did was learn learned from first

principles but then we saw it actually

turn into systems and processes here but

the the the thing I didn't realize as a

product manager in a in a large tech

company is there is very little product

management that you do you're you're

actually not as involved in the product

as I had assumed like I I thought oh

you're the you're the person who uh uh

gets in the pixels and uh designs the

flows and no absolutely not like you're

actually more more you're DET completely

detached from the design process there's

a design vertical of or org that does

all that and uh they don't really want

you working on that and so that was very

difficult for me because actually when

people ask me like what do you think

you're good at like at the core I'm a

designer um I I don't consider myself a

product manager I'm you know great at

growing things looking at mix panel and

then designing the things that make it

grow uh but there's a there's a rift

between those two things inside of a

large tech company and so I loved the

academic approach to Growing but I I it

was really hard for me personally as I

uh became disconnected from the design

process and I think that a lot of my

skills atrophied over those those four

years um but um I I did stick around I

went through multiple orgs favorite one

at the end was uh new product

experimentation where worked with other

Founders uh kind of a bunch of Legends

in Silicon Valley building zero to one

products Standalone apps I mean I was

building Standalone apps my entire time

at Facebook and uh I I think I built

probably eight apps while I was at

Facebook um wow but it is it is much

much more difficult to build apps at a

large company um a lot of the

insights that you have are not things

that you can necessarily present or put

in writing into in a VP meeting like

we're building an app for teens to flirt

like that probably is not what you would

present to a bunch of McKenzie

Consultants at in uh so I think that

makes it really difficult to be

completely intellectually honest about

what you're building um and when the

team isn't honest about it then it's

it's really hard to iterate toward the

right thing in that context having said

that there's a lot of things you don't

have to deal with as a product man you I

don't have to deal about think about

money I don't have to think about you

know paying legal bills or doing Finance

and Accounting and so all that's

abstracted away but there is you know

regulatory stuff that you have to deal

with that I I had zero exposure to as a

uh as as a founder of a small company um

yeah an insight you're sharing there

potentially is like the reason a company

like Facebook isn't amazing at launching

completely new product zero to one stuff

is they might be a little too risk

averse and it's hard to talk about stuff

that people actually really really want

deeply is that is that kind of the sense

there uh it's hard to really uh

verbalize some of the reason like the uh

the things that motivate us as people

and I uh I had like a pretty there

there's a tweet I put out that's kind of

dogmatic in terms of like how how I view

why people download apps and it's like

it's very simple it's like people

download apps to uh make or save money

examples of that might be like you know

WhatsApp where you know free texting and

then the other reason is to find a mate

so maybe like Tinder or SnapChat to find

love and the third is to unplug from

reality uh maybe like Netflix or

fortnite there's a bunch of other kind

of subcategories that are very

utilitarian like movement you know Uber

or Airbnb like you know shelter and so I

think putting that in a framing document

and the particular nuanced reason uh why

people are going to adopt is is

difficult um as when you're presenting

that to uh you know people uh that are

you know seasoned professionals and uh

uh care about how something might

reflect on them personally and so that's

really difficult um inside of a large

company you certainly have distribution

advantages if you want to just inject

your app into one of the parent apps and

get density within a community you can

do that but

uh that that part I think is probably

solvable for a startup uh if you just

want to pay for ads or like getting your

app into a dense friend graph is is

overall trivial like you you as a

Founder you should be able to pull it

off after enough tries so that advantage

that a big company brings I mean it's it

makes it easier but uh it's not not

something that I think uh is something

that a Founder can't solve for

themselves so an interesting takeaway it

sounds like is many people feel like I'm

gonna build a social app they probably

often hear it Facebook's going to do

that Instagram's going to copy you

snap's going to do that and what I'm

hearing here is it's not as easy as many

people think that it might be actually a

lot harder for them to try something

it's not only harder for them to uh

identify these opportunities and to

verbalize it internally uh and align the

company around it it's it's also hard to

respond to signals in the market a lot

of people think like uh these incumbents

are going to steal your ideas and for

the most part it takes a pretty long

time for them to respond to even the

number one app or uh charting in the

because it'll start charting in the App

Store you know a PM will make a post

about it and then uh the the markets

strategy or market research team might

do a study to follow up on it uh and

it'll kind of float around for a few

months they they might uh put together a

framing deck saying hey we should go

after this opportunity let's put

together this team it'll go through VP

reviews and then uh it'll start

development development might take six

to 12 months realistically I think most

companies uh large compan

take like 12 to 24 months to respond to

competitive threats in the market do you

think this is solvable is there

something a company can change to get

better at this are there companies that

are good at this in your experience or

is this just as you grow this is just

what happens the incentives within large

companies make this very difficult

because you don't want to present

something that you have a hunch about

being a good idea because if there's not

Market signals already then it's hard to

defend and people in companies are

focused on getting their you know yearly

bonus or their uh you know uh they're

focused on their performance reviews and

uh it's hard to show up into a a framing

meeting saying like and a framing

meeting is like a meeting where you you

know you position you're you're

positioning the opportunity and

everything here's what we should go

after it's hard to like just say okay uh

by first principles this is a good idea

and here's some like very vague Market

signals in reality you need to walk in

and say here is the number one app in

the United States and we don't we don't

own it and if you present something like

that that's pretty defensible on a if

you fail uh because there was Market

evidence but if you fail about something

that's more based on kind of vague

abstract so you you have to generally

like the only path is to kind of copy

existing companies uh existing products

if you want to really get momentum uh

ins inside of a large organization and

for new completely new Concepts it's I

think very difficult to present a lot of

those ideas uh either to verbalize them

into a document or to even get rally uh

the organization around it that's a

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before we move on to the next chapter uh

I want to come back to the very first

thing you said where product management

is not real uh is there anything else

that you can say about your Insight

there or is it basically what you

describe where PMs aren't actually

involved in design a company like

Facebook and your experience the the

functional organization structure of big

Tech has kind of separated product

Managers from the product development

process in many ways they're not looking

at data because data scientists are

doing that they're just parsing some of

the reports that they get back they're

mainly just writing a documents and then

kind of being the team secretary and

running around getting approvals for uh

from each uh cross functional team legal

privacy everything like that and yeah

it's you're act you're actually very

much separated from the product itself

and and so I I think like what Snapchat

has done and I think Apple too to the

same extent is that designers run the

show

and I think that's led to some very

novel products coming out from both of

those companies but I mean that that has

its own host of problems because

actually rolling out a product inside of

a large organization it it requires a

sheer force of will because it's a lot

of work I mean there's a lot of

regulatory scrutiny you know scaling it

up like there's you do need someone to

to project manage and so I I don't know

if it's the Silver Bullet is to give

designers the Reign to to control to run

the show but I also don't think the the

current the the traditional like Google

Facebook style of being team secretaries

is also the best solution to defend

product managers uh I think many product

managers spend a lot of time with design

spend a lot of a lot of time with data

signs I think probably what you saw is

like the extreme big big big Tech

version of product management I know

even ppms at Facebook can if they want

to spend time with design I think it's

just obviously very different from a

startup world where you're just that's

all you're doing yeah it's certainly an

exaggerated view but it's particularly

relevant I think for all the zero to one

initiatives uh because like if you're if

you're a product manager on a standalone

app inside of a large like you should be

designing the hierarchy the pixels the

flows everything like and then yeah it

should be cleaned up prototype by a

technical designer but that's your idea

and products Live and Die in the pixels

like consumer products so that that's

that's on you uh and that's that's where

I think for maybe larger growth

initiatives yes you can have uh you can

be a more detached from the pixels I

love that

advice okay before we move on to the

next phase of your journey of starting

gas I heard there's an interesting story

around where you were actually put

within the Facebook office uh physically

where your team was put is that that is

there some there

yeah so our our team was actually uh

when we joined the new product

experimentation group uh we were

actually seated I think like at the

basically the same desk as uh Mark

Zuckerberg uh and that that was pretty

cool uh to see you know how the how the

machine runs uh like from the uh from

zuck's view but we uh we had a few

artifacts that we had kept with us from

our old office uh when we were running

uh tbh and one of them was this uh this

kind of pop art painting that I bought

on the street when I needed to get

something on the walls for our office

and it was this giant painting of Tim

Cook we had been carrying it between our

orgs at at Facebook just because it was

a funny painting uh and I I kind of got

it because like it it was kind of

symbolic of who actually controls our

destiny is uh is Apple um and uh so when

we relocated to uh the area where Zu was

sitting I I put up the painting on the

wall and it was basically a giant

painting of Tim Cook was overlooking

Zuck and eventually one of the uh uh EAS

uh there said um actually do you think

you could take that home uh and kind of

made sense because uh the uh you can't

really have a painting of a of another

big Tech executive overlooking us what

does it look like do you happen to have

it yeah I I actually I actually do let

me let me let me go grab it

amazing oh wow that's that's artistic so

that's Tim Cook what is the idea there

that he's peeking through this Darkness

staring at you yeah yeah he's uh he's

the real boss of all of us uh I could

see I could see I have suck would not

want that staring in all day that's

amazing and I like that you still have

that with you yeah one of the artifacts

of uh that of that chapter of life so

good okay so so that was your Facebook

Journey that was four years that's wild

you left Facebook at some point you

started I just I remember this you

started tweeting like hey I'm working on

you app everyone was going nuts so whaty

working on and at this point I I think

you probably in your mind thought he I'm

this one hit wonder I haven't shown that

I can do this again and again and so I

think you probably had this motivation

maybe talk about that just like this

drive of like hey I want to do this

again is that where your mind was at

when that uh meme started my intent was

to start a venture-backed company and

build something you know uh that would

scale to be a big team and this durable

thing that you know lasted many years

and everything and so I was like uh I

just made you know a post that I was

leaving Facebook and looking for uh you

know some teammates and um I shared uh a

couple of ideas with uh some people

privately and was there were some really

crazy ideas that I shared I I I'm not

going to get into them but uh uh then

people started posting oh my God I just

saw Nikita's app it's crazy and what

happened was others saw that and then

they started Ming it and it became this

massive like meme like where they're

like oh I I just I just tried Nikita's

app it saved my marriage I I just quit

drinking uh my my kids returned home

after all these like and it just it

turned into this massive Meme and like

and at the time I I didn't even have an

app or anything like I wasn't even

planning to launch it it wasn't even an

app that the thing that I was some of

the ideas I was looking at and uh so it

just turned into this viral uh moment um

I I wasn't really even that fixated on

building another like I wasn't even

committed to starting another company at

that point I just this was an

exploration process but what happened

was

uh the market had crashed shortly

thereafter there was uh it's kind of the

end of the Zer era uh the FED started

hiking rates I think my portfolio was

down like 30% or something and I was

like damn this sucks uh maybe I should

think about how to like make money today

uh um just you know that that's that's

the reason we're in startups is to to

make money uh and so there was always in

the back of my head this question uh

that I had which was what if we had

monetized TBH because the number one

support message we received was can I

pay to reveal who sent me

polls um that was the like number one

question and I it was like would it have

made even more than the acquisition if

we just monetized it uh and so I was and

I'm like we could probably build this

pretty fast like probably in a month

month or two ended up being a lot longer

but um we uh we started rebuilding it it

was a new team uh it was uh

one of the engineers from a company

called Paparazzi his name is z z Turner

and he started building it in my house

and uh we uh we had tested it um to see

would this thing uh with this with this

this new version of TBH actually

resonate with with kids uh this five

years later that was actually the the

the thing I wanted to know most of all

was like would a polling anonymous

polling app actually still be relevant

five years later and so we dropped it

into the uh this the school uh just you

know the same way we we I I've always

done it and was it the Georgia school

again Yes actually um uh we launched at

the exact same school uh that we uh we

launched TBH on the exact same day W

five years later fun fact um and uh

people sent a lot of messages uh but it

wasn't growing so let me let me pedal

back here a bit um

so TBH grew through variety of things

people sharing their messages to

Snapchat and uh text invites and that

was

2017 uh and the way you invited your

friends on TBH was that you tapped their

name uh your contact name there was a

button that said invite and then we used

twilio to send them a text message and

the regulatory environment actually had

changed a lot over those five years you

really can't send text from a server

anymore it has to be sent from the

device the user's device and just a

point of clarification is like a lot of

people clone TBH over the years and they

think that when you voted on people in

the polls that sent them a text we never

did that that that's like egregiously

illegal to do like and also unethical at

a user experience level to send texts

when people don't even know that that's

what's happening but anyway we couldn't

send texts over over uh twio anymore and

that led to people not sending as many

invites when we recreated gas uh and uh

or we create gas because they they had

to pop they had to pop the compose

window and hit send every you can just

tap invite on five names so we actually

had to reinvent all the growth systems

and it took about I think like nine

launches including renaming the app

including

like features that just never existed on

TV so it was actually just a in many

ways like yeah the concept on the

surface was the same but it was a very

much a uh zero to one development cycle

of figuring out how to grow this thing

uh again in this in this climate I know

that point is really important to you I

think a lot of people are like Nik just

sld the same app twice what a what a guy

and point you're making here is it was

Not only was like the infrastructure

completely different the team was

different you had to rethink the entire

flywheel of how it worked and how it

grew yeah and there were so many layers

of like we we we we validated one thing

and then the next thing we weren't able

like we got stuck on like okay people

will it'll spread uh or people send a

lot of messages cool great the next

thing was will it spread within a school

that took us a while to get right will

it hop schools each of those was a very

very challenging problem uh in light of

the new climate that we were operating

in and uh I I always do things by the

book like when it comes to like

operating you know like legally within

the the compliance framework uh and

that's something I when I meet Founders

and they tell me some growth thing that

they're doing and I'm like you you can't

do that that you what that's going to

cause way more trouble down the line

it's going to burn users too and so we

always wanted to make it abundantly

clear how our growth system like how you

inviting friends and all that can kind

of go on a whole diet tribe on that

because the thing that I see a lot of

Founders do is they in the background uh

use user data in ways that it shouldn't

be used uh like they invite they invite

uh people on your behalf and all that

and I have this kind of crazy view that

the internet is this like living and

breathing thing there's this Wikipedia

article called the Gia hypothesis which

is about biology and it it's basically

like uh the Earth is kind of living and

breathing and can respond to threats

okay and when like you enter the

rainforest too deep Ebola virus will be

released okay so I think the internet

operates on a similar Paradigm here

where if you are if you do the wrong

thing by users the will come back and

and get even and defend itself and so

we've always whenever I design products

I try to do right by users because it'll

always come back much worse and I think

you should always you know operate above

board with how you design your growth

systems and with with with gas we had to

you know do things the right way and we

had to figure out at each uh each

particular kind of moment of how or

problem that we solve like will it

spread within schools will it hop

schools will people pay for it all of

all of these things we had to uh uh was

a whole rein reinvention of the original

product I love that you shared that

because I think a lot of people see you

from the outside and they think you're

doing all kinds of these skey growth

hacks and making teens do things that

aren't really mentally healthy for them

but it's clear that that's the opposite

of how you think about it that you're

trying to stay very positive like you

only allow positive communication you do

things that you as you just said are

going to be good longterm the internet's

not going to come and try to shut you

down the point you bring up here uh

about wanting to build a positive thing

there's this like there's some people

sometimes I get criticism it's not

actually that often but they say oh

you're building an app that makes teens

feel insecure or anything but with gas I

think we received a message every single

day about from a user telling us that

they reconsidered suicide or other form

of self harm the the app sent you

positive messages and affirmations uh

like it made teens feel really good and

I think a lot that that is lost on a lot

of people Instagram you know can make

you feel jealousy and like a lot of

other social networks kind of are a

mixed bag in terms of impact but we were

like entirely focused on making teens

feel better and some people might say oh

what if someone doesn't get voted for

something we actually built a system to

ensure everyone got a vote and we what

we did was we put your name in polls at

a higher frequency to uh if you weren't

being voted on recently so like we

wanted to like spread the love in every

way possible and and that's what really

motivated uh me to like grow this thing

was watching how it was impacting 10

million kids for just in in such a short

period of time I really appreciate you

adding that I didn't know all those

things about the way you thought about

these these apps interestingly I don't

know how much you can go into this but

there's a lot of uh stuff going on with

gas around uh human trafficking and all

this stuff where people thought people

were being kidnapped through gas which

is yeah talk about that whatever you can

because that's pretty crazy we had this

hoax started where uh people were saying

the app was used for human trafficking

and I I was like this is so strange this

is a Anonymous polling app without

messaging and and uh the only thing you

could do is send compliments to your

friends and I researched into it and I

saw that this is actually plaguing a lot

of apps and uh any app that has gone

viral in any way has actually had this

hoax started and part of the reason it

happens is it actually it gets you

attention if you say if you say that

about an app as as a teenager if you say

oh this app is dangerous and then you

get a bunch of followers and who doesn't

love followers

uh so it's actually a really like viral

piece of content if you put it out and

so we had this hoax started uh and we

were like this could kill the company

and I talked to a bunch of Founders that

it happened to them and they said yeah

we had to shut down because of that wow

and uh and I I was like is is this it is

like is this the you know the end of uh

the company and uh I remember it hit

number one when uh we started getting a

few of these reports like in our support

channels and I was like I'm just going

to plant the flag and and and post that

we hit number one in the app store

because this thing's probably going to

shut down soon so I I make this

announcement on Twitter I just made the

number one app and I thought it would

just be dead in a week and then uh I I

just had this sudden burst of energy and

I was like I'm gonna I'm gonna win I'm

gonna fight this uh this is not true

makes no sense at all and so we fought

it at every Vector possible um this

completely made up hoax we uh met with

journalists reporters to make sure that

the number one match every time you

search gas app human trafficking was gas

app is not for human trafficking and so

that ended up being the Washington Post

headline we insisted that that be the

headline if we do the interview so that

was the first thing that show up on

Google anytime someone searched it there

were schools and even a police station

that posted that this app is used for

human trafficking I called those

superintendent I called those police

Chiefs and got them to publicly retract

it and we had some of the reviews on the

App Store we had we asked Apple to

remove them uh because we got review

bombed but the thing that actually was

the most impactful was uh my girlfriend

made a video a Tik Tok video explaining

that it's not true and we uh anytime

someone deleted their account they could

watch this video explaining it's not

true and at the peak we had 3% of users

deleting their accounts per day it was

like really cat like it was a

catastrophe for for an app um and we got

it down to 0.1% uh through Relentless

Relentless effort and it's it was really

just uh an unusual thing that happens

when you grow really fast is uh is this

this these these this human trafficking

hoax that starts and you you you don't

understand how crazy it is until it

happens to your company um but it was it

was it was it was kind of hilarious to

think about like this this half was the

most harmless benign thing you could

think of this is insane I did not know

this full story and you were doing all

this while you were trying to scale the

app and trying to keep the servers up

and try to grow it right how what was

that like to try to manage all these

things at once I was sleeping three

hours a day for three months it was EXT

extraordinarily difficult uh to to do it

all uh our team was also Relentless

though like they would come over to my

house 9:00 a.m. stay until midnight and

just do that seven days a

week um so yeah it was uh it was

definitely like one of the most

physically draining things ever but we

were just so tactical I remember

investors were asking to meet with us

and I said if you can't get a celebrity

to post that this isn't true then uh we

we're not interested but yeah we we we

went after it on every vector

and uh it ended up being okay I love how

this like you took your brain to this

other completely different problem and

thought about all the levers you could

use to change the conversation around

the app yeah we even I remember we had

these Tik Tok videos that were made that

were saying it was true and I had like I

I clim I networked my way all the way to

the CEO of Tik Tok and I said can you

delete these and we got them this miss

this information deleted yeah so it was

uh it was really a uh a whole new test

of uh our team's capacities was uh

fighting the the key thing that you have

to know though when you have a hoax

spreading about your app is uh you

really have to make sure the hoax is

less viral than your app uh and some at

a few points The hoax was more viral

than our app and we had to uh we had to

take this uh the K factor of the

hoax that's absurd okay so broadly you

built this app again a big success I saw

stat that you made $10 million or $1

million in sales through the app 10

million downloads that right yeah it was

a blowout success in terms of like on on

uh it grew bigger than TBH uh we

monetized it you know we ran almost

entirely on Startup credits um so it was

basically you know CL credits like aw

credits AWS credits mix panel I I I

remember I I was like when I saw the

early data I'm like okay now it's time

for me to negotiate every bill down to

last cent of margin for every vendor and

I got credits everywhere and so I I we

really were tactical with that um and so

we ended up being you know all all just

pure cash flow for the team no we had no

investors and uh and it was just so

interesting though that like the way

that I started posting about it on

Twitter was it kind of captured the

zeitgeist of of the internet and uh we

didn't intend on selling it we were just

going to let this thing run its course

and just be this app that kind of lives

in the background of Our Lives um but uh

once it started capturing like the zist

of Twitter I was like wait a minute we

could probably sell this thing and uh

and that's when we started engaging with

uh you know some of these we ended up

getting uh yeah three three companies

that wanted to to buy it won't be able

to say them but ultimately we ended up

selling to uh to Discord

um and we uh we we join

Discord awesome so before we move on to

the next part of the journey and some of

the other insights that uh I want to get

into is there any lasting lessons that

you took away from gas as a product that

you take with you to advising startups

in terms of building the product design

I know there's many but any that stand

out most that you think are really

interesting to share I think I kind of

touched on this before which was trying

to validate things in in a sequence of

like will people use the core flow will

people spread it within their peer group

will it hot peer groups and what I think

the most important thing is that I

learned is that's actually a really

great way to do zero to one product

development is execute at 100% for the

thing you're trying to validate at that

specific stage of the product

development cycle and then the rest can

kind of you can kind of half-ass the

rest just so you can get 100% signal on

that one part

and so we made the polling experience

just perfect the questions were great

you know push push notific everything

worked and then the next stage was like

getting sharing and virality working and

so compartmentalizing those things

because ultimately you'll have too much

scope creep if you try to solve

everything at once and validate and also

you're not going to get signal too like

you're trying to test one thing at a

time so the way that now I approach a

lot of consumer product development is

like if this is true then what next

needs to be true for this thing to work

out and layers of conditional statements

and the more layers you have the higher

risk your product is so you should try

to condense it to about like four things

that must be true uh for the thing to

work and this comes back to your advice

of the thing you need to get good at is

testing and learning and making it

really quick yeah okay maybe one last

thing along this thread I'm just really

curious how this hoax came to be like

who's behind it how does this happen we

got a original support message which uh

which which was a a screenshot of a

story on Snapchat okay and it saido not

download the gas app it's for human

trafficking okay and it was a screenshot

that had like uh kind of that mirror

effect where you have like uh 10 like 10

people had screenshotted it like more

like 40 people because it had like all

the usernames of uh so I was looking at

this and I'm like how much visib like

how how many people have seen this uh

and it looked like a viral thing on

Snapchat and then I went to the App

Store page and I saw a review that uh

that said this app is for human

trafficking and I went to my team and I

said you know

we this this might this will probably

kill the company this will kill the

product um I I've seen this before with

consumer apps and it's evident to me

this is going to be 10 times bigger

tomorrow and they were like no it's just

one one message what what do you mean

I'm like no no it's been screenshotted

40 times and now it's on the app store

Page like and we got another message

four hours later and uh in the next day

it was our entire app store Page was

just covered with reviews saying that

the apps for human trafficking and uh we

actually had to Rebrand the app we uh we

relaunched it once uh and uh we're like

we let's just call it something

different just relaunch it on the other

side of the country we did that started

going viral again and uh the the

craziest thing was it reemerged and what

happened was one user was friends with

another person in another state and they

got an invitation and that user told

them oh that was in my state it's

actually for human trafficking and then

it just completely started again and uh

and then it was too late at that point

to relaunch again uh was I we just

realized we just got it we gotta we got

to fight this thing and and uh

ultimately I don't think we'll ever know

the true origin but uh yeah it was uh it

was it was definitely a living breathing

uh uh like hoax that is insane that the

story just gets more and more

interesting what are the what were some

of the previous names by the way is that

something you can share yeah we went

through a bunch we had like uh one of

them was called Crush one of them was

called melt and another was uh the

interesting thing about crush is we got

a great domain we thought this was this

would be the name uh this was between

the some of the like rebrands we tested

it and we saw that invitations dropped

significantly under the crush name and

we were like what's going on here and we

found that actually when you invite

someone to an app regardless of the app

you generally me Bo boys invite boys

girls invite girls to apps and boys

didn't want to invite their friends to

an app called crush a pink with a pink

Icon and then we looked at the data and

the app I mean this was true of TBH too

which was the app indexed about 6 60 to

65% women so we're just like let's make

the app more masculine and see what

happens we need balance on this so we we

made the icon black with a flame called

it gas and the invitees rate jumped and

uh you think a name doesn't matter but

right at the moment of sending an invite

yeah you uh so that was one of the

interesting insights of on uh the the

naming process man there's just endless

stories that we could keep getting into

but uh We've also gone very long so I'm

gonna try to move on yeah to another

topic so I asked people on Twitter what

to ask you uh just that question got a

thousand likes just me asking what

should ask Nikita and the most common

question I'm sure you get this a lot is

just people wondering do you ever want

to build a durable consumer app is it

possible to build a durable consumer app

Scott bsky asked this uh Robert at fig

Mass this and Scott actually had a

really nice way of describing it about

why are so many quick sensation C

consumer apps proving to be more akin to

Summer songs than enduring Standalone

products and businesses there's kind of

two questions here one is Do you want to

build a do you aim to build a cons

durable consumer app and two how

possible is it a lot of the fundamental

like tools for communicating with our

friends either you know messaging uh or

posting broadcasting one to many like on

stories or po you know those the

incumbents have kind of uh built pretty

large Moes in terms of network effects

and to provide true like uh like an

order of magnitude better experience is

non-trivial because they've been

actually improved these products so much

over the years and there's actually not

there's not that many entry points not

not to say that it's not impossible

Snapchat was showed that there was a

style of messaging that people wanted

that the incumbents weren't serving but

I think there's these kind of edges that

you can go after with a much higher

probability of success and they might

not actually be something that's durable

necessarily and I think finding

durability for a like communication or

social product that's a Black Swan event

you like retention for Consumer social

is like there there's a tremendous

amount of Randomness there's like one

every decade if it was simple I I would

just be printing one trillion dollar

companies uh I be printing Facebooks uh

every time I sat down but I think it's

actually a lot of it is pure Randomness

on the other hand growing a product can

be a science with certainty if you're

good at your job you can make an app

grow and go viral

now why haven't I tried to take the

viral part and build something that has

been durable or long lasting I'll tell

you a little bit about my motivations my

favorite part about product development

is you make this thing you know through

the night you build it and you watch it

take over the Internet that is the mo

most thrilling drug I think you you

could you could ever experience and and

and just watching it spread all over the

country it's like you you drop an app in

you know the uh the Deep South in

Georgia and then you look on your

analytics dashboard and 40% of the high

school down your street in Los Angeles

has downloaded it one week later like

that's a really profound feeling that's

it's just it's crazy to have that sort

of impact as a three-person team and I I

live for that when I joined Facebook uh

this is like here's here's an

interesting connection so I joined

Facebook and I saw that many of my peers

were like looking up to VPS and they're

like that's what I that's what I want to

make it to one day and I want to run a

large organization I want to have lots

of reports and and then I met with VPS

and they were actually jealous of me

because my quality of life was actually

pretty cool I I I got to build something

high impact that uh made many teens feel

better about themselves made decent

amount of money and then I wasn't you

know uh in charge of this becoming a

people manager that has to run this

large Organization for for many years

and so I think one day I will uh run

maybe a venture scale business that uh

but I uh I I I I will say that I kind of

like the way that I've been doing things

so far uh in terms of quality of life

and being fun financially it's been

great so I think uh that that part is

what motivates me and yeah I I don't

think uh you know running a large

corporation is necessarily what I

describe as fun that's amazing man I

really I'm really happy we went here uh

so much of this resonates with the way I

think and uh obviously a big part of

this is also just it's very hard as you

said to build a dur build a consumer app

that grows first of all second actually

lasts but that is interesting that you

do hope to one day build a uh Venture

funded business I mean TBH was

venture-backed but uh I I just don't

like I I I think I'm gonna have to like

do I want to sign up for 10 years and if

you actually look at some of the numbers

uh on like the the actual proceeds that

some that some of these Founders get

after an IPO after seven rounds of

delution a lot of them are pretty

comparable to what we get from our apps

for 90 days of work so um yeah they uh

the tradeoffs there are pretty uh pretty

favorable actually just on that on that

note so what would make you actually

decide to go Venture funded you talked

about how if you're going more

mainstream non- teens folks after 22

years old is that why you would go that

route I don't think that like it's

necessarily that part it's more uh I

think if uh the if I if if I could keep

the team lean and and scale up I I think

you know there's there's some actual uh

Founders that actually operate very lean

teams and have reached very large scale

in terms of the valuations the company

like actually the the most uh iconic

example is Elon Musk his teams are

actually pretty thin overall and he's

he's in the weeds doing product

development and so I I think yeah if if

I was to ever do it I do it under very

specific set of uh operating principles

uh versus turning it into a big tech

company Q investors emailing you right

now send with term

sheets okay Nikita this has been amazing

uh there's one last segment I want to

spend a little time on which is just

kind of a rapid fire of pieces of advice

you've shared that uh I think is

incredibly insightful about how to build

a successful consumer app and so I'm

thinking I'll just go through like three

to five and see what you think and see

what you can add to the the device

that's how does that sound sounds great

Okay cool so so the first is just uh

contact permissions in iOS 18 changes

the game and how people can grow apps

basically makes it harder to invite your

friends thoughts on how people should be

thinking about this in their in their

products I uh when I first saw it I was

I was really concerned uh tweet about it

you're like that's the end came over

just let me let me frame things up for

you

the contact permission screen you know

you you average about 65% approval rate

across all apps higher it's higher for

teens lower for adults

and but if you have a 65% consenting to

contacts access then the next step on

this new iOS 18 change is you select

which contacts you want to allow the app

to access and it's an alphabetical list

and that alphabetical list for me I have

550 cont or something the first 10

contacts are punctuation symbols from

whatever like dirty entry I put when I

was driving or something so you have to

scroll down and find that name so I have

to find Lenny I have to add you and what

if you're not an app user so I've just

added you and or three others like

assuming users are willing to even do

that and then you like you and then the

three others never sign up but maybe

three of your friends do but I never get

connected to them because uh there's

there's no over

so the my expectation is the it's going

to be very difficult to find friends on

apps going forward to invite friends on

apps going forward and that Founders

will need to rethink how they do it and

of the of the companies I'm working with

on on intro we are looking at ways to

reinvent what contact sync is or what it

what what purpose it served it's not

promising but we have we have some good

leads and I think we'll have a whole new

set of apps emerging as a consequence

but if you're betting on contact sync as

a company right now yeah you you better

uh better start uh thinking about Plan B

so what my takeaway here is just it is

now much different and there's an

opportunity to think of something really

clever that would give you a huge

Advantage if you can crack it yes but

most likely I think most apps will not

have social graphs going forward and

this will entrench incumbents even more

I I don't think Apple uh acknowledged

that I think the person that designed

the feature probably have has never

built an app or done contact sync before

because the flow is egregiously bad and

it it doesn't actually even I think

benefit the user's privacy because it

just completely eliminates the feature

altogether okay next topic so you uh

helped uh this product called dupe

succeed it's doing incredibly well from

what I can see and I saw you tweet about

one of the key things that you helped

them through which is to invert I'm

reading this quote inverting the time to

Value so that the user experiences the

aha moment in seconds talk about that

insight and how important that is to

building a successful consumer social

app the this kind of concept of getting

users to the aha moment is something I

recurringly bring up to every company I

work with

and you have to understand that in

2024 people's attention spans are like 3

seconds it's really sad but you know we

are we're we're spread thin through so

many notifications products everything

that if you can't demonstrate value in

the first three seconds it's over and

and this also leads back to the containg

question that you talked about was you

have to sign up and then the first night

you have to see all of your friends on

the app and experience it otherwise

you'll you'll churn so this ideaa of

like inverting the value uh when I was

working with dupe they had this kind of

shopping app that had a bunch of

different features and there was one

feature that I saw that was interesting

called deal hop and it allowed you to

just you know put in a product page and

it would find uh the cheapest version of

it

online um something I already do kind of

through a bunch of duct taped methods of

Google image search Google ends and uh I

was like that should be a that should be

a whole company but how are we going to

teach users to do it and how do we

expose them to that aha moment as fast

as possible in a memorable iconic way

and I had this product I I built a while

back where you just type the domain in

front of an existing URL so I should I

told them uh you should try this uh it's

like very marketable and but you need to

get a very short domain that matches the

what you're doing and so he went and

bought dp.com for I don't know how much

but it was when he bought that I was

pretty uh pretty excited I'm like well I

if this doesn't work I'm gonna feel

terrible but if it does work it's going

to be a blowout success and so we he put

out a couple videos about it and then

you know it was iconic went viral uh the

videos users remembered to do it to type

dp.com in front of a URL and now I think

they're you know making millions in AR

in a matter like I think under 60 days

of launching and that that was a blowout

success and uh yeah of the companies I

work with like uh you know that R like I

would say it happens about 50% of the

time we hit that much success but the uh

we hit success I think 50% of the time

it's outright failure because consumer

is so random and so what I'm hearing is

a big Insight is

just ideally gets a three seconds time

to value is that the advice yeah

yeah sounds great easy peasy

yeah uh you you really have to craft you

know on boarding everything to to ensure

that um and it's yeah it's it's

uh that's

where the design part comes in of being

a great product person and imagine a big

part of this is just cutting things you

think like killing Your Darlings cutting

things you think people need and just

being really ruthless with that really

ruthless but also being extraordinarily

creative with h how you use the tools

available to uh activate a user and I

think extraordinary product people are

deeply aware of every possible API and

how it can be used in non-traditional

ways like this URL trick was something

that I think you know was

non-traditional that uh people adopted

very quickly I have like a whole laundry

list of uh iOS mechanisms that could be

re that people use for a certain way

today but you could invert them uh

contact sync is a great example because

you know you sync your contacts and then

it finds all the friends and then ranks

the people who are not on the app yet

but have a bunch of friends on so

there's there's a bunch of uh ways that

you can one tap expose a ton of value to

users that uh that I think Founders

often neglect and the yeah a lot a lot

of Founders will go and say oh they can

just Exchange usernames and that's how

they can add each other that is the most

like unrealistic thing ever because that

means you have to see the username type

it into the app you have to do that what

uh 50 times to get a 50 friend person

friend list so we're think we're looking

at uh like 10,000 Taps versus one so

that's that's what I mean by trying to

get people to to the activation moment

the aha moment uh and get them uh get

get get them to Value I love that advice

so maybe as a just a last question along

these lines when you come to a Founder a

relationship that you're a startup

you're trying to

help is there one more thing that you

find often ends up being really helpful

to them any common piece of advice

that's like oh this is probably what's

going to help you you talked about this

aha moment step the sharing contact

sharing stuff I guess is there anything

else that's just like this is something

that'll probably going to help you with

your app right now I think I advise

around 35 36 companies um and all of

them are at kind of different stages of

uh challenges they're facing um some of

them are you know pure at the product

concept stage some of them are you know

venture-backed billion doll companies

and each of them faces different

problems and I think the first thing I

often do is I I ask them to show me the

analytics we look at how people are

Distributing the app today what's the

what is the uh Milestone that a user

must hit to become activated and what's

getting in the way uh of that I also

take a very deep look at uh every funnel

that users come through

and I think uh a lot of Founders

separate marketing

and product growth uh like top of funnel

growth from from from the actual

products growth mechanisms but

they're both the same they're both like

they both should be treated as the same

like if uh if you're targeting a a

community and you want them to all adopt

and get saturation you need to uh build

marketing that shows imagery of that

Community or whatever and then when you

get in the app you have to be able to

join that community that the and when

you invite people to the from that app

that Community needs to be mentioned so

there you need to cover every the mark

like everything from the ads to the

inapp experience to the all of that

needs to be aligned for a user

acquisition and flywheel spin a lot of

people really screw that up that's kind

of kind of my initial kind of rough

approximation of what I do when I come

in and try to fix some of the or try to

help with some of the challenges these

companies are facing okay so this is

actually a great segue to the final

thing I want to make sure people

understand is you help companies through

this talk about how you work with

companies where they can can find you

what kind of companies you're looking to

work with and how all that works yeah um

so I work across the gamut most of them

are like consumer mobile companies and

there certainly are web ones too but I

uh I work with companies across stages

typically I recommend that you don't

book me unless you're venture-backed

it's because it's a little expensive but

my main goal when uh when someone does

seek my advice through intro is is I I

try to make them like 10 times back

their money in the first 30 days and so

far I think I've I've managed to do that

with anyone who's who's met with me and

that means like get all the table Stakes

growth things out of the way uh at the

minimum then identify two to three step

function changes that could change their

growth trajectory and these are higher

scope fundamental changes to the product

so I try to couple both explain to them

which one I which direction I believe

they should go it's a conversation and

we talk about it and and then once they

kind of settle on a

direction I uh I I tend to get in the

pixels I go into figma and we do a live

session together and kind of clean

things up I identify oh that that's

going to convert at this percent that's

gonna and then I like just manage all

that and then but yeah it's generally

like post uh series a some you know seed

seed stage companies uh and it's it's

been really fun it it's kept my you know

my mind sharp on uh like where the

Market's headed I've also kind of over

the years of building all these apps

I've acred all these growth hacks that

still are nobody knows about and so I

share those with the when when it's

relevant for the company and it's it's

been great uh yeah dupe was one of them

I I was advising Saturn I rebuilt their

FriendFinder they're I think believe

they're number one in uh the

productivity section above chat GPT uh

as of today I think I've but I think

I've generally invested uh in about

maybe 10% of the companies uh that that

seek out my advice amazing well I know

it feels expensive to some people but if

I were a company with cash it feels like

the best deal I could find someone like

you to come in and actually help me

think through deeply like in the pixels

how to make my thing work so I think

you're still undercharging and I hope

you keep raising your prices because

clearly there's a lot of demand Nikita

this was incredible I feel like people

see on Twitter and they're like oh this

guy is such a jerk sometimes but like

meeting you in person and talking to you

it's very clear you're a really kind

dude really thoughtful all your advice

is based on like real things you have

done it's not just you sitting around

pontificating and I think that's

incredibly valuable and I'm excited

people are tapping that knowledge and

you're sharing it with people in a wider

scale it's it's been a pleasure uh

thanks for having me um we covered a lot

and uh there's there's there's plenty

more I hope to come back uh after the

next viral hit oh man I was going to ask

you is there anything you're working on

now or stages what can you share about

the next stay tuned here we go amazing H

I always ask people how can listeners be

useful to you so let me just ask you

that as a final question how can

listeners useful to you uh follow me on

Twitter uh and enjoy my ship posts uh

and I hope you're you have as much fun

with me as me uh on on Twitter I do man

I love your tweets and uh Nikita thank

you so much for doing this and for being

here

yeah thanks a lot bye

everyone thank you so much for listening

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