How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps

The Nugget

To consistently go viral with consumer apps, focus on identifying latent demand, ensuring a rapid "aha moment" for users, and meticulously crafting a growth strategy that spans from marketing to in-app user experience.

Make it stick

💡 Latent demand: Look for areas where users undergo a distorted process to get value. If you simplify or clarify their motivations, you can achieve explosive adoption.
🚀 Aha moment in seconds: Aim to deliver value within the first three seconds of the user interacting with your app.
📈 Holistic growth strategy: Make sure your marketing and in-app experience are aligned to facilitate user acquisition and retention seamlessly.
❌ Avoid negative experiences: Ensure all user interactions, especially in anonymous apps, are positive to prevent issues like cyberbullying.

Nikita Bier identifies latent demand by looking for areas where users undergo a complex process to obtain a particular value. E.g., the app Sarahah, which was entirely in Arabic, hitting number one in the US App Store. This indicated a strong demand that was not met in a user-friendly way.
Simplifying or clarifying motivations can lead to intense adoption, as seen with apps like tbh and Gas.

Bier launched many apps (about 15) before hitting success, underscoring the importance of rapid iteration and user testing.
Ensuring that every tap on a mobile app is valuable is crucial due to the low margin for error on mobile platforms.

Identify and validate core flow usage, in-school spreading, and hopping between schools or peer groups.
Use a sequence of conditional statements: "If this is true, then what next needs to be true for the product to work?"

Strategies included seeding apps into schools and targeting communities thoroughly.
To test your product, execute 100% on the thing you’re trying to validate and "half-ass" the rest to get clear feedback on that specific element.

Bier fought a hoax about Gas being used for human trafficking by engaging journalists and getting videos removed from TikTok, showcasing the importance of maintaining a positive app reputation.

At Facebook, Bier learned that product management often involves a lot of document creation rather than core product design.
He believes consumer products are "in the pixels," and product managers should be closely involved in the UI and experience design process.

"If you're good at your job, you can make an app grow and go viral."
"Every tap on a mobile app is a miracle for you as a product developer because users will turn and bounce to their next app very quickly."
"Anonymous apps go viral, but they always lead to these awful news stories of kids committing suicide, self-harm and all that."
"It's hard to just say, 'Okay, by first principles, this is a good idea and here's some very vague market signals.'"
"People download apps to make or save money, to find a mate, or to unplug from reality."

This summary contains AI-generated information and may have important inaccuracies or omissions.