How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps (co-founder of TBH, Gas, advisor…
Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. — Brought to you by: • Webflow—The web experience platform — Nikita Bier is one of the most in-demand consumer, social, and growth experts in the world. He’s the co-founder of TBH (sold to Meta for more than $30 million) and Gas (sold to Discord for millions more) and has helped more consumer apps that have hit #1 in the app stores than any other person I’ve come across. He currently spends his time advising founders on growth, product, and design and is an investor and advisor to some of the best consumer tech companies, including Flo, Locket, Eight Sleep, Citizen, BeReal, Captions, and more. In our conversation, we discuss:
Book Nikita for 1:1 consultation/mentoring: https://intro.co/NikitaBier Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-consistently-go-viral-nikita-bier Some takeaways:
Where to find Nikita Bier: • Threads: https://www.threads.net/@nikitabier • Website: https://intro.co/NikitaBier In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Nikita’s background (06:08) Nikita’s early ventures: Politify and Outline (08:42) Transition to consumer apps (13:45) The birth of TBH (16:43) Building for teens vs. adults (20:00) TBH’s viral success (32:18) Leveraging live chat (34:08) Lasting lessons from TBH (37:00) Selling TBH to Facebook (42:19) Big-tech product management (48:46) Nikita on why “product management is not real” (51:49) The Tim Cook painting story (53:53) Leaving Facebook and starting a new venture (58:02) Rebuilding TBH and overcoming challenges (59:46) Addressing criticism (01:04:24) The human trafficking hoax (01:09:51) Selling to Discord and lessons learned (01:11:36) Lasting lessons from Gas (01:13:14) Building durable consumer apps (01:22:35) The VC route (01:23:27) Contact permissions in iOS 18 (01:26:53) The success of Dupe (01:31:53) Advice for startup founders (01:34:14) Work with Nikita Referenced: • An app that could change your vote: Nikita Bier at TEDxBoston: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9QTVII_lkg • Outline.com Announces $850k Seed Round and Successful Bid with Massachusetts: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/outlinecom-announces-850k-seed-round-and-successful-bid-with-massachusetts-222963991.html • Techstars: https://www.techstars.com/accelerators • Use This Site to See Which of Your Facebook Friends Is Most Similar to You: https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/your-personality-type-defined-by-the-internet/ • Nikita’s X post on why shares decrease with age: https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1573365055802036224?lang=en • Facebook acquires anonymous teen compliment app TBH, will let it run: https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/16/facebook-acquires-anonymous-teen-compliment-app-tbh-will-let-it-run/ • Erik Hazzard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-hazzard-4013038/ • Sarahah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarahah • Michael Gutierrez on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelfgutierrez/ • Roger Dickey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerdickey/ • Nikita’s post on X about why people download apps: https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1481118417973243907 • Tim Cook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cook • Zay Turner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaiahjturner/ • Twilio: https://pages.twilio.com/ • Gaia hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis • Human Trafficking Rumors: https://polarisproject.org/human-trafficking-rumors/ • Mixpanel: https://mixpanel.com/ • Discord: https://discord.com/ • Lessons on building product sense, navigating AI, optimizing the first mile, and making it through the messy middle | Scott Belsky (Adobe, Behance): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-on-building-product-sense • iOS 18 cracks down on apps asking for full address book access: https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/12/ios-18-cracks-down-on-apps-asking-for-full-address-book-access/ • Nikita’s post on X about inverting the time to value: https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1813735668276928682 • Dupe: https://dupe.com/ Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. You're currently a free subscriber to Lenny's Newsletter. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
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