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

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