Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps (co-founder of TBH, Gas, advisor, investor)

August 25, 2024

AI Summary

5 min read

Nikita Bier shares tactics from launching TBH (sold to Facebook) and Gas (sold to Discord), plus advising dozens of apps to the top of the App Store. He emphasizes empirical testing over theory, targeting teens for their high invitation rates and daily proximity, and spotting latent demand where users distort existing tools to get value.

Spotting opportunities and rigorous testing

Bier identifies ideas by observing distortions like teens using Snapchat stories for positive feedback (TBH's origin) or an Arabic anonymous app topping US charts (Sarahah signal). He tests via reproducible processes: seed synchronously into single schools using targeted ads and Instagram follows for the first 100 users, add 24/7 live chat for feedback, and geofence to control scaling. This eliminates variables like insufficient density, confirming if users hit aha moments with friends. Success is binary—if it works, hourly actives spike and chaos ensues; uncertainty means pivot.

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What you'll learn

1 `* (00:03:26) **Intro and early hot takes**`
2 `* (00:07:40) **Early career pivot to consumer apps**`
3 `* (00:10:55) **Why target teens for viral growth**`
4 `* (00:20:08) **tbh origin, launch, and explosive virality**`
5 `* (00:29:37) **tbh testing and growth tactics**`
6 `* (00:34:52) **tbh scaling chaos, sale, and Facebook PM insights**`
7 `* (00:54:19) **Gas rebuild: reinvention amid changes**`

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

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:

• The inside story of how TBH and Gas achieved explosive growth

• Strategies for building viral consumer apps

• Why teens are such a great audience

• Fighting the human trafficking hoax at Gas

• The challenge of creating durable social products

• His experience working as a PM at Facebook

• Advice for founders on building consumer apps

• Much more

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