Brian Norgard is a serial entrepreneur - expert team-builder - and currently Chief Product Officer at Tinder, the massively successful dating app. Brian knows a thing or two about how to grow and evolve successful products - and it's NOT about chasing trends or adding sexy new features. If you're into creating compelling products, I know you'll enjoy soaking up his wisdom and hard-won advice. Listen in and discover how a seasoned product leader guides his team towards success.
Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/dYGjXhnmi5w
Brian Norgard is a serial entrepreneur - expert team-builder - and currently Chief Product Officer at Tinder, the massively successful dating app. Brian knows a thing or two about how to grow and evolve successful products - and it's NOT about chasing trends or adding sexy new features. If you're into creating compelling products, I know you'll enjoy soaking up his wisdom and hard-won advice. Listen in and discover how a seasoned product leader guides his team towards success.
Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/dYGjXhnmi5w
Intro: [00:00:01.6] From Silicon Valley, the heart of startup land. It's Getting2Alpha. The show about creating innovative, compelling experiences that people love. And now here's your host, game designer, entrepreneur, and startup coach, Amy Jo Kim.
Amy: Brian Norgard is a serial entrepreneur, an expert team builder, and currently head of product at Tinder, the massively successful dating app.
Brian knows a thing or two about how to grow and evolve successful products. And it's not about chasing trends or adding sexy new features.
Brian: It sounds perhaps cliche, but what is that promise to the customer that you are fulfilling? It all starts with this promise. What are you giving them? It could be hope.
I could be, you know, achieving them some sort of time savings or efficiency. It could bring the money. But what is that one thing that you're doing? That [00:01:00] singular thing that is making their life better, improving their life. It all starts with that promise to the customer. And then from there, you have to have a point of view on something that is different, something that's new, something that's changing.
And I like to say, one of my favorite words is always sort of reduce, reduce, reduce, reduce. The greatest product people and you know, by and large, you know, some of the greatest products ever invented come from people that were really reductionist thinkers. They take that one promise that is so important to the customer, whether, you know, the entire world sees it or it doesn't, and then they reduce it down to something really, really simple, fun and useful.
And I think one of the hard parts about building products. And challenging the status quo and creating companies is your second guess yourself. You want to do more, you want to add more, you want to create more, you want to do something bigger. And what you realize is these incredible innovations are generally reduced down to their simplest form at first.
Amy: I [00:02:00] love the way this guy thinks if you're into creating compelling products, I know you're going to enjoy soaking up his wisdom and hard won advice. Listen in and discover how a seasoned product leader guides his team towards success.
Welcome Brian to the Getting2Alpha podcast.
Brian: Thank you very much for having me, Amy.
Amy: So wonderful to get to connect with you. I'm so excited to learn about where you've come from and kind of where you're headed. But first, can you tell us a little bit about what your daily life is like now you're head of product at Tinder, right?
Yeah. So just bring us into your life. Like I know there's probably no typical day, but what kind of decisions are you making? Who are you interacting with in this role?
Brian: Right. So, you know, my, my role as chief product officer is, is you know, to really understand the customer to really think about what the customer is [00:03:00] feeling about our product, where the technology trends are going and sort of what leads us to that never ending task of building an incredible user experience.
You know, we always say there's no beginning and there's no end and certainly Tinder has proven that to be true for me. So most of my time. Uh, is spent either interacting with members of our team and my team, specifically PMs, and also talking to customers and reading a lot about, you know, sort of what's out there, where the trends are headed and, you know, sort of what the world is doing at this very moment, because we all know it's changing so fast.
I really like to balance my day between structured and unstructured work in the structured category that generally means meeting with product managers, individuals who are helping shape sort of the road map of our company and in an unstructured way, I'm a big believer in, you know, I'm a voracious reader, I spent a ton of time, you know, had the pleasure of following you, Amy, on Twitter.
I spent a ton of time reading on [00:04:00] Twitter. And, you know, I forced myself, uh, even as, as old school as this may be to try to get in 30, 45 minutes of reading a hardcover book each day. Um, that kind of balances me out, keeps me fresh. And a lot of times it has nothing to do with product, but you know, I think the interesting thing about constructing my day and how I go about, you know, trying to get stuff done and see the world is I try to find inspiration from every person I meet.
I don't, you know, if a, if a junior PM is one year out of school, you know, a lot of times we'll have conversations about what this cohort is doing, what they expect, how they're using apps, how they're using technology. You know, conversely, I can sit down with someone who's been out of the game for 20 years and they can talk to me about, you know, what it was like when they were first building a website in the early nineties and what that meant.
And the, you know, trials and tribulations. So I, I try to take a little piece from everybody and I try to learn from everybody now, obviously that sometimes is, um, is difficult, but you know, I think a lot of it comes with this sort of creative open mind [00:05:00] and, you know, I think the one thing that I think may be helpful to your audience is throughout my journey, I've learned that there is, you know, positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement when building your products and trying to understand customers, sometimes it's what to do, but a lot of time I'm finding the advice that I'm doling out is what not to do.
You know, and you learn that through patterns. Um, this isn't something you you're born with on day one. Most of my lessons in building products for customers come from mistakes that I've made or mistakes I've seen other people, other entrepreneurs, other companies make, obviously Tinder is a fantastic ecosystem.
We have tens of millions of people. There's always something due to learn from our customer. And so I'm voracious about scanning. Everything from Twitter to Facebook search to Reddit, you know, to comments around the web, just trying to piece together the tapestry of the customer. So yeah, it's, uh, my day is, my day is fantastic and, and I'm still very appreciative that I get to do this each and every day.
Amy: That's so cool. So I'm so curious how you [00:06:00] came to to be having this amazing position at this highly influential and innovative company. Where did you first get started in the world of design and startups and tech? And then how did you decide which projects to pursue along the way when you were faced with decisions?
Brian: Yeah. So my path is not dissimilar from probably a ton of people on your show. I've started a university. Got very interested in consumer technology while I was there and, you know, tried the whole startup thing right out of school and was fortunate enough. Uh, my first company was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp in 2006.
So I was able to, uh, you know, sharpen my teeth, you know, pretty quickly in my career. And the thing that was interesting about sort of the arc of You know, where I am today versus where I was at 19, 20, I was fortunate enough to have, I think what you'd call a considerable amount of success early, uh, which put me in the room with a lot of [00:07:00] senior people.
And a lot of people have been thinking about product technology for, you know, much longer than myself. And, you know, from there I was able to ship a lot of products over, you know, a five to seven year span. We were fortunate enough to build one of the largest Facebook open graph apps. I've, you know, built communities with millions of users.
And, you know, throughout this process, I'll say there was tons of failure, tons of times where I built the wrong product for the wrong customer. I was listening to the wrong users. I was delusional about the promise to the customer, but, you know, I've kept going and I've kept attempting to learn from the decisions I made, learn from the most influential people and also people, as I mentioned before, that are, that have horrific advice, you know, try to sort of understand what buckets people go into and then sort of this is now culminated in, uh, Tinder, you know, and Tinder has been obviously an incredible success.
And we've shipped a ton of products that have been really, really impactful from, [00:08:00] you know, the swipe itself to the double opt in to Tinder goal to boost to super like, and now picks and places and all these products are really an aggregation of the people experiences and successes and mistakes I've made in the past.
I like to say, Amy, just sort of as a framing point, my true north when it comes to building products is they must be simple, fun and useful. That is my trinity. It's what I believe consumers want. And so, you know, where I've refined my sort of product sensibilities is really, really trying to deliver against that value proposition for my customer.
And, you know, having shipped so many products and having seen tremendous success and also tremendous failure. I've become really, really in tune with this idea of what I think customers want. And I'm not always right, but I think what's interesting about where I am now in my career is I can see a through line insofar as success when it comes to taking it.
When I applied the principles of simple, fun and [00:09:00] useful, I was generally way more successful than I was when I got off that path. And so, you know, having been an entrepreneur, you know, and still being an entrepreneur, I think of myself as a entrepreneur first. But a product designer second. And the reason why is I'm always hungry for that next twist, that next thing that customers want, that, that piece of technology that's going to enable or extend the behavior and, you know, with that sort of mindset.
Then I come in as a product designer and a product leader, and I try to help sort of, you know, guide in towards that. And, you know, the interesting part about it is I have a lot of questions thrown at me almost daily on Twitter, which is like, how do you do it? What is the formula and, you know, really the art of product, is really that it is an art. It is not a science yet.
And though we use data to understand where to go and to make decisions about whether products succeed or fail, it still is an art. And so, you know, I'm learning every day, you know, you think about what's happening in the world right now. It's unbelievable.
We have, you know, mobile [00:10:00] is now This incredibly rich, you know, environment with 3 billion users. And when you think about it, just amazing. 3 billion. You have VR and AR starting to, you know, show signs of life. You have cryptocurrencies happening. Like this is just an incredible time to be alive and to learn.
So that's what I'm doing. Keep going.
Amy: Love it. So you've been working at the forefront of innovation for many years. You know, pushing on those boundaries, looking back, what do you know now about how to innovate successfully that you wish you'd known 10 years ago?
Brian: You know, I think there's a couple of things that I really key into and this is stuff that I attempt to instill in my product team and my company, which is, it sounds perhaps cliche, but what is that promise to the customer that you are fulfilling?
It all starts with this promise. What are you giving them? It could be hope. I could be, you know, achieving them some sort of time savings or efficiency. It could bring the money. [00:11:00] But what is that one thing that you're doing that singular thing that is making their life better, improving their life? It all starts with that promise to the customer and then from there, you have to have a point of view on something that is different.
Something is new. Something is changing. And I like to say one of my favorite words is always sort of reduce, reduce, reduce, reduce. The greatest product people and, you know, by and large, you know, some of the greatest products ever invented come from people that were really reductionist thinkers. They take that one promise that is so important to the customer, whether, you know, the entire world sees it or it doesn't, and then they reduce it down to something really, really simple, fun and useful.
And I think one of the hard parts about building products. And challenging the status quo and creating companies is your second guess yourself, you want to do more, you want to add more, you want to create more, you want to do something bigger. And what you realize is these incredible innovations are generally.
Reduce [00:12:00] down to their simplest form at first, and that is a very, very hard thing to wrap your head around because, you know, frankly, humans, I think this isn't something that you, you, you learn when you're 17 years old. It takes a lot of trial and error, but some of the best people in the world at this.
Williams for example his success with blogger and twitter and medium is not an accident i could go down the list of product developers kevin system at you know Instagram you know you had a very big app before Instagram and you know bourbon and sort of he boiled it down and kept pulling it down and all of a sudden you have this magic with this Instagram experiences and filter same thing with Tinder.
You know, uh, you look at online dating, uh, pretender, and it was a very, very laborious, arduous project. It took sometimes 30 minutes to get going. You know, with Tinder, you hit one button and bang you're in. So I think this. Pursuit of reductionism is really what I wish I had learned and thought about more.
And I think one of the ways [00:13:00] that, you know, your listeners and people who are, who are really interested in trying to get here, you, you have to step back once in a while from your products and say, is this really as simple as it could be? And am I fulfilling the, the promise that I'm making to the customer?
And if you can say yes and yes, on both of those axes, if you will, you have a chance to succeed. It is by no means a hundred percent, but you have a chance. Uh, and so that's the template. I hope I can continue to apply it to more companies and, and more features at Tinder. But the other thing that's really interesting about this world is moving so fast.
If you're not really, really paying attention, you can age out quickly. You know, I've seen some of the best entrepreneurs in the world, um, go from being savants, you know, on the desktop to completely having no idea how. The mobile ecosystem works or mobile user experience, mobile UI, and they missed the entire vintage.
So it is a constant pursuit of knowledge, but that reductionism is the key.
Amy: [00:14:00] Very cool. So You work with product managers every day. You guide them, you lead them, you coach them, give them feedback. What are some of the most common mistakes that you see product owners, product leaners, product managers make?
Brian: Right.
Amy: Especially in the Early days when you're bringing a new idea to life, when you're sussing out a new feature, you already mentioned the difficulty of stripping things down to the essence. What are some of the other mistakes and misconceptions that you see commonly that you'd love to clear up and get them to learn?
Brian: There's so many, um, but you know, many of them, many of them do rhyme and it's okay because we all make mistakes in building products. I think the first is, There is a tremendous amount of ego involved with building products, but ego has to be applied at the right times. And, you know, a lot of times I'll see someone come in and they're building it for themselves, which is [00:15:00] okay.
That's not a bad, that is not a poor way to start building a product, but that gives way to this, it's all about me and it's not about the customer. And so, you know, one of the things I tell people is I say, first off, you need to learn who to listen to. You know, if you come in with feedback from a hundred different people and it's coming from a hundred different angles, that's not going to help you.
You need to find someone who really is and really exemplifies your customer. You have to understand how still down what they're telling you and what they're not telling you. And then you have to take that point of view and you have to walk into a room and you have to be, you know, as hard as this is, because again, this is an art, somewhat ego free in your synthesis.
And I found that, like, once you've found the right customer to listen to, you know how to synthesize that information and you come into the room somewhat ego free, not completely, but somewhat, you have a chance of success. Now, I could go down the list and I've made every mistake. But the other thing I've noticed, and this is particularly [00:16:00] relevant to I think people who've gotten into the product management product game in the last five years is a overvaluation of data.
You want to look at data to solve all of your needs to tell you what to do where to go what color what font size what is the gesture and in truth. What data is, is data is a tool.
It's a, it can be a fantastic tool. It can be a tool that gives you tons of signal to go right or left, but also it can be misleading. And I think that we live in a world now where we've seen these, these massive companies blossom. And, you know, one of the things that they do, for example, at Google.
But you can test so much and you could have you can be such an informed opinion based on data that you completely obliterate the reason why you're actually there to serve the customer. And so one of the things that I talk a lot about is not only reductionism in product design and that promise to the customer, but also [00:17:00] reductionism in the data that you're looking at to inform the opinion of whether product is working or not or succeeding or failing.
And what I mean by that is. You know, I don't want to look at 100 KPIs to determine whether or not a product is successful or, you know, a, you know, multi sheet. Okay. Our playbook that says if all these things happen, we have success. I want to understand that one piece of data that you believe as a product manager or creator is the reason why something is working or not.
And, you know, you would be very surprised how many people cannot, you know, bring that to life. It's just too hard for them because data has become a crutch. The, the other piece of advice that I'll throw out is an emphasis back on design. And, you know, one of the things that I think is perhaps one of the most powerful tools.
In the entire sort of playbook and I don't care if you're building a physical product or a digital product is being able to create some sort of prototype of that product that you [00:18:00] can put in a customer's hand and you know we have these amazing tools today like framer and we have rapid prototyping machines for hardware where you can actually at a very low cost create very very sort of life like renderings of what it is you're trying to accomplish.
And I think being able to use those tools effectively and seeing them in front of a customer seeing seeing a customer's eyes light up for the first time that is something you cannot put a price tag on. And so every single time we get into a position where we're not sure about something, one of the first questions I ask is, is there a way that we can essentially fake this to see if a customer cares?
Because then you're not guessing, then you're actually looking and seeing a real person interact with something you've created and and you'll see if that simple, fun and useful equals surprise and delight or nothing. So, you know, it's another sort of really powerful tool in the world is just getting better.
I mean, at this point now. It's almost hard to tell, you know, [00:19:00] between Framer and a real app. Like, you know, uh, even a seasoned vet looks at something very quickly and says, Oh, that looks real. Oh no, that's Framer.
Amy: I call that the pupil dilation principle, which is, do their pupils dilate? If not, you don't really have something exciting.
Brian: It's a great one. I, I've never heard that term. I might have to borrow that from you.
Amy: Please do.
Uh, I, I have, I have my own term for it. What is it? Um, so, you know, they say, you know, it's the most powerful thing in the universe is compounded interest. I actually think, uh, in the mobile ecosystem system, it's, it's called the wrist twist.
So why do things scale? Why do things go viral? It's generally always word of mouth. Like we all know that you can build incredible loops with address books and whatnot, but like the real reason why products enter that sort of escape velocity phase is because people are talking about them and how people talk about products is especially in mobile, which is, you know, I think where a lot of your customers care right now is they'll, they'll open their phone, they'll hit the app or whatever it may [00:20:00] be and they'll turn their wrist and they'll show their friend and they'll go, look at this.
Everyone remembers that moment. The first time they saw, you know, Uber and the car moving. A lot of people remember that moment. That first time they opened up Tinder and they're kind of swiping away. And like, you know, they were giggling and chuckling, but it was fun. These are things that create blockbusters.
These sort of experiences, these feelings. And, you know, I think that even though the bar is incredibly high and it's very hard to do this, that wrist twist or you called it the pupil dilation, that that is the literally the moment in time whether you know you have something special. Or you may have to go back to the whiteboard.
Amy: Yep. Again, looking at all the people you work with every day, product managers, and also the people you interact with on Twitter, you know, et cetera. What are the signals that you see in either a person or a team that tell you that they're likely to succeed [00:21:00] and be a great product leader?
Brian: Yeah, it's, it's, it's a great question.
Something I think about quite a bit. You know, one of my roles is, is, is that of a mentor and a coach? The first thing is always the same for me, which is a level of intellectual curiosity. Someone who's willing to go the distance, you know, have, uh, varied tastes, uh, read different types of, of books or online publications or listen to different types of podcasts.
It's that diversity in thought. And, you know, I've seen some of the best with. Machine learning degrees and PhDs and, you know, I've worked at the biggest companies and they couldn't produce anything. And I've also seen people come out of absolute nowhere, you know, to be some of the greatest product designers and product thinkers, you know, this world has the offer.
And I would say that, you know, time and time again, it is that sort of intellectual curiosity. Um, I work with one of the world's greatest designers. His name is Andrew Rudman and he designed most of Tinder. You know, his [00:22:00] background was, you know, he was a painter in college. He was, he was, he was painting an oil.
You know, you say, what, what, what does that have to do with, you know, designing Tinder or, you know, thinking about world world changing products? Well, it has everything to do with it. He has that flexibility, that intellectual and creative flexibility to sort of see the world in a different way. And so, you know, I'll be the first to say like there is no one size fits all when it comes to creativity.
I've seen everything from people who are, you know, incredible graffiti artists to painters to, um, individuals like Sean Rad, the founder of Tinder was, you know, he was great at music. You know, he was fantastic on the piano. It comes from a lot of different angles, but I think you know it when you see it.
And the other thing that I've learned, especially in working in a larger organization, and we've, you know, luckily we've been able to attract a ton of talent here at Tinder. The people that come through this door really want to be here. And I think what sets apart sometimes some of these gray products from average products is you [00:23:00] can see literally the brilliance in the product.
You can look at it and be like, I can, it maps to the person. The product takes a bit of the identity of the person. And I think that like, that's very hard to. Explain to someone who's not in the game, but once you get it, you know it and what that equates to, and I fully believe this is a point of view on the world, you know, bland, generic products that, you know, don't register that no one really cares about, you know, like they fade away.
But when you see something, it's just totally different. Totally jumps off the page and whatever it may be whether it's a sneaker or an app or you know someone who's building a physical product a lot of times you can map it back to that founders personality you go oh i see that product in her or in him.
And so a lot of times i look for a tad bit of eccentricity in my people because that is how you create some of the magic now it. [00:24:00] Doesn't always work it doesn't always work but when it does, it is, it's phenomenal.
Amy: So what's your sweet spot as a creative person? What kind of projects light you up?
Brian: You know, I've, I'm still, I'm still looking for the answer to that question, but what I think, uh, I'm good at is, uh, Starting with that promise to the customer and then being able to discern whether we are holding that line or not.
I am not the world's best designer. I am not the world's best UX expert. I'm certainly not the best at, you know, setting up a bunch of quantitative tests to determine whether this is succeeding or failing. But what I think my principal skill is, is being able to focus in Thank you. And really drive towards whatever that promise is.
And having made so many mistakes and having, you know, also made some really powerful good calls. I think I understand how to stay that line. And you [00:25:00] know, we, we were lucky enough last year to launch something called Tinder gold, which has been the most successful feature in the history of the industry.
And it added roughly 10 billion onto the market cap of Tinder. And that product was. Uh, an incredible learning experience for me. And one of the reasons why is I knew exactly what the customer wanted. And despite the fact that a lot of people wanted to soften it on one side or change something on the other or provide other utility inside the product, I said to myself and, you know, also, you know, my team who was incredibly helpful and shipping his product.
I said, like, no, we're staying on this line. This is an efficiency play. It's getting people to a match faster. Uh, this is going to save a lot of people, a lot of time, and they're going to get a lot of utility and it's simple, fun and useful. And we're staying on the line. We are holding the line and that is, that is the product we're going to ship.
Rain or shine. And if we're wrong, we're wrong. But if we're right, let's see what happens. And we were very right. [00:26:00] And so, you know, I've had a lot of incredible people in my career helped me sort of define how to keep that line. And some of it comes with some of it is confidence. Some of it is experience, but it's also, you know, to throw sort of the reductionist kind of ingredient into the mix.
It's also, I really think about that customer and I start with that customer. So when I draw that line, it's not much of a struggle for me. Now, if I don't understand the customer, I'm, I'm completely sort of at a loss for what their sensibilities are, what their needs are, then, you know, I, that's where, you know, I can get into trouble.
But when I believe I understand the customer, I can hold the line. And I think that that is, I think one of the more rare skills in technology today, because it's really a function of throwing together. Uh, just so much different stuff. There's behavioral psychology, as you know, there's neuroscience, there's UI, UX technology, you know, there's the ability to size a market up and understand the strengths and weaknesses of the [00:27:00] product and what else, whether compliments exist.
So what you're really doing is throwing all that into a bucket and then drawing a straight line. Throughout my career, I've always partnered with someone. Who had a a skill set that was differentiated from my own i've worked with incredible incredible technologists like dan gold incredible product designers like sean rad and andrew rudman and you know we have a young group of people coming up with my company a guy named ryan mc who's fantastic kyle barber who's fantastic sam stevens amazing and these are all people that i put around me.
So when I'm trying to do something, I'm trying to hold that line. I have that diversity of opinion coming from a different direction. So that is a very, very important part of the puzzle. You know, they always used to say, you know, the Steve Jobs needed Johnny Ive, right? You can't do it all on your own. You really do have to surround yourself with other people.
And I've learned that surrounding yourself with other people with different skill sets It makes all the difference in the [00:28:00] world.
Amy: I think you just described your superpower, perhaps. So what are you seeing that's catching your eye in design and tech these days? What trends or developments are you personally following and interested in?
Brian: I'm interested in quite a bit. You know, I think there are a number of things that are happening that are very interesting. One is the emergence of China, um, and the type of companies and products they're creating. This is, this is really changing, really changing the world and changing how even product designers in America think about designing and building and shipping products.
So China is something I'm watching very closely. I spent a ton of time trying to learn about the ecosystem, learn about the new products launching. Another thing, obviously, I think I mentioned earlier is Cryptocurrencies is something I've spent a ton of time thinking about. To me, it seems a lot like the early wave of the internet in sort of the mid to late 90s.
And you know, obviously things, you know, these markets fluctuate rapidly, [00:29:00] but it's a space that I spend a ton of time. You know, probing because I think it's, it, it has all of the dynamics that the internet did some 20 years ago, but, uh, even more so more talent, more money, more people paying attention. And so that, that space is really fascinating to me.
Um, I think the third thing right now is we're seeing these scale platforms, whether it be Instagram, you know, adding messaging and adding, you know, Instagram TV or Tinder, you know, right now we have. A place is product that we're testing a pics product. But you're really seeing these these large scale properties continue to build new features for customers.
And obviously, because I'm in that lane, I spent a lot of time thinking about it. But I don't think by any stretch, innovation is even remotely close to dead now. Mobile is saturated. Cost of acquisition has gone up and it is much harder to build a blockbuster mobile product than it was [00:30:00] potentially five years ago.
But what I tell people is that you, you have to remember that these incredible enabling technologies, they don't just happen overnight. You look at, you know, AR right now, it seems very early, you know, VR went for this through this incredible phase where everyone expected, you know, Oculus, you know, to take over the world and didn't happen.
And people are like, is VR going to happen? I fundamentally believe that both AR and VR will happen. It's just a matter of. A bunch of contributing factors have to sort of add up in order for something to kind of really, really start to catch. And so we haven't seen, we haven't seen that, you know, yet in those communities, but I think we will.
So if I seem like a technical, uh, sort of a technology optimist or a utopian thinker, when it comes to all this stuff, I am, but I've had the pleasure of looking at these patterns emerge over the last decade plus. And generally speaking, there is one rule Which is when a ton of smart people are working on something, you know, at some point in time, it usually turns over and [00:31:00] becomes really, really important.
So calling the next huge phase or wave really, really hard to do, but love crypto, really interested in AR, really interested in what you can do with VR and incredibly excited about what we're seeing happen. In China, like I think that is, it is a really, really seminal point in history and one where, you know, if you said 10 years ago that product designers that scale internet companies in the U.S. Would be modeling after what's happening in China, people would think you're crazy. I think that will be the norm in a couple of years.
Amy: What in particular in China is interesting to you?
Brian: You know, there's a lot there, but let me start with, we have a bunch of evolved systems in the US, you know, we have cable TV, we have Netflix, we have all of these compliments in the market.
Um, China came on, you know, and basically just jumped from not having a lot of access to Being mobile first video, just huge data consumption. So they made this massive jump quickly. And [00:32:00] I think what you're just seeing is a ton of rethinking and re imagining about what's possible and what technology can enable.
The U S is an incredibly mature technology market and one where you can learn a lot. But I think that there has been a period. Where I think people stopped taking the same amount of risks as I saw before. And that's because, you know, you had these behemoths, you know, Facebook scaling, um, YouTube scaling, Instagram scaling, Tinder scaling, it's sort of blocked out the sun.
Not all these properties hold true for China. And so you're seeing all sorts of variations and tests and amalgamations and people putting services together that were never together before. People combining. You know, um, different technology formats that really perhaps weren't a big deal in the U.S. but are massive there.
You look at what's going on in video today, for example. I mean, they are far ahead. When it comes to thinking about, um, how to use video in creative ways. And these are just all elements in this [00:33:00] bigger tapestry that, you know, we're all connected. Um, I think that, you know, we're, we are moving towards this world where our products will be much similar than they will be different.
And humans, you know, though we may speak a different language or be divided by an ocean are incredibly similar in their behavior. So I think that this is such a fantastic time. Um, truly observe an ecosystem that's one scale to mobile first and, you know, very, very, very aggressive in their usage and three where entrepreneurs are taking tremendous amounts of risk with products and, you know, as, as, as we all know, with risk comes reward, but a lot of companies will fail, but that's okay, that's okay for, you know, for every, uh, you know, it's probably, you know, thousands, if not tens of thousands of dating apps that released in the last, you know, 10 years, but Tinder became Tinder.
That's fine. The surplus goes to the customer for their surplus goes the end user. And so that's why I'm so excited right now about China is just the amount of sheer sort of innovation, [00:34:00] velocity, and risk taking all rolled up into one.
Amy: So what's on the horizon for you? What's coming up that you're excited about?
Brian: You know, I'm always excited about our product road map and Tinder. It is our core differentiating feature. It is the place of most durable value. Um, and the reason why I believe that is, you know, you might be able to copy what's on the screen that you see today from, you know, the Tinder experience.
But you won't be able to copy what, you know is in my head or is in a product developers head or a product managers head that's coming in six months to a year so you know as we go global and as we continue to sort of push into new markets our product roadmap continues to fascinate me keep me up at night sometimes drive me nuts. But it is a real point of inspiration.
It's also a point of inspiration for me because it's just such a, such a large opportunity now to build on top of when, you know, you're talking, you know, tens of millions of users and hundreds of millions of downloads, one feature could change the trajectory of potentially millions of [00:35:00] people's lives. So that, that to me is really exciting.
The other thing that I've become really, you know, sort of in tune with of late is I love, well, I love working with entrepreneurs. I love seeing people sort of again, push the boundaries, have a point of view, stay on the line and build world changing products. And luckily in the seat that I'm in now, I get access to great folks.
And so, you know, one of the things I've been doing is providing tons of mentoring capital as well, you know, because as we all know, companies need capital get going. And then third is just really sort of tutelage along the way, along the journey. We all make mistakes.
We all hire the wrong person or have a issue with a co-founder or whatnot. And so, you know, I can be, I can provide mentorship in that capacity. So I think, you know, for your audience and for you, cause I know you care deeply about this, this is a product first world and people who have these relevant skills are going to do incredibly well.
And I think that is both a scary and amazing time to be someone who's building scary in the fact [00:36:00] that, you know, we used to think about the old days. I was the general manager at my space after it sold my first company. I remember we were looking at the screen and we said, Oh, wow, I think we passed 35 million users and that sounded like the most users anyone had ever heard of.
It almost sounded like a lie. 35 million. How could it be? How could that be? So Now, um, look at the numbers. I mean, Instagram passed a billion MAU, uh, last month, probably going to 2 billion. I mean, what an incredible time to be alive. It is, um, everything they'd promised from the internet in the early nineties and more, and, you know, now you have it all reinventing again with cryptocurrencies and whatnot, and AR VR, it's just, it's an incredible, incredible time to be alive.
Amy: That's so cool. So I think we might have to do a part two. I have so many more questions I'd love to ask you.
Brian: I'm happy to do it. And you know, let's, let's absolutely, uh, let's absolutely make time for that.
Amy: All right. Thank you so much for joining [00:37:00] us today. It was a total pleasure.
Brian: Thank you, Amy. I appreciate it.
Outro: Thanks for listening to Getting2Alpha with Amy Jo Kim, the shows that help you innovate faster. faster and smarter. Be sure to check out our website. getting2alpha.com. That's getting2alpha.com. For more great resources and podcast episodes.