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

2024-08-25 · 98 min · 15 entities

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→ hosted by Lenny Rachitsky person

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Feed author/publisher: Lenny Rachitsky
→ founded TBH company

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co-founder of TBH
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co-founder of TBH
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→ discusses Business concept

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→ discusses Entrepreneurship concept

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→ references penname.co website

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Link in episode "How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps (co-founder of TBH, Gas, advisor, investor)": https://penname.co/
→ references NikitaBier website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps (co-founder of TBH, Gas, advisor, investor)": https://intro.co/NikitaBier

Entities found in this episode

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founded TBH company

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co-founder of TBH
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works at TBH company

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TBH

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mentioned Entrepreneurship concept

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discusses Business concept

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Feed category: Business
discusses Entrepreneurship concept

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Feed category: Entrepreneurship

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mentioned penname.co website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps (co-founder of TBH, Gas, advisor, investor)": https://penname.co/
mentioned NikitaBier website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps (co-founder of TBH, Gas, advisor, investor)": https://intro.co/NikitaBier
references penname.co website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps (co-founder of TBH, Gas, advisor, investor)": https://penname.co/
references NikitaBier website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps (co-founder of TBH, Gas, advisor, investor)": https://intro.co/NikitaBier

persons 2

mentioned Lenny Rachitsky person

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Feed author/publisher: Lenny Rachitsky
hosted by Lenny Rachitsky person

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evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: Lenny Rachitsky

Episode description as stored

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 — Brought to you by: • Webflow —The web experience platform • Vanta —Automate compliance. Simplify security • Explo —Embed customer-facing analytics in your product — Book Nikita for 1:1 consultation/mentoring: https://intro.co/NikitaBier — Find the transcript and show notes at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-consistently-go-viral-nikita-bier — Where to find Nikita Bier: • X: https://x.com/nikitabier • Threads: https://www.threads.net/@nikitabier • Website: https://intro.co/NikitaBier — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — 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 — 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe