After 10 years of building consumer social apps, I’ve decided to start exploring new areas. Building these products is an unforgiving grind—but I learned a lot along the way. For those embarking on this path, here’s everything you need to know: TIME FOR A THREAD 👇 View Tweet
A reproducible testing process is more valuable than any one idea. Innovate here first. All things equal, a team with more shots at bat will win against a team with an audacious vision. View Tweet
Most product ideas are Dead On Arrival because the conditions to derive value are impossible to orchestrate. Getting 7 adult friends to install an app on a reproducible basis is non-trivial. If you can figure out how to do that, that’s a bigger idea than your original concept. View Tweet
Don’t be embarrassed to have a narrow target audience. All big things grow from small wedges in the market. View Tweet
If you need to launch nationwide to test your product, it’s not a good test. You will prematurely exhaust your audience’s attention and limit future shots. View Tweet
If your product works in one community (like a high school), it should work in all of them. If your products fails in three communities, it should fail in all of them. View Tweet
Nothing slows down teams more than inconclusive tests. If you’re walking away from tests & saying “maybe we needed more downloads” or “people needed more friends”—then your biggest priority should be fixing your testing tactics so you can decide to pivot with conviction. View Tweet
The people and content on an app always trump slick design & novel interactions. So focus more on getting network effects and solving the “cold start.” You should be filtering your product ideas by whether you have a distribution channel and if they can grow. View Tweet
Excessively long sign up flows are fine if it leads to higher activation rates. Most people don’t bail after installing something. View Tweet
Habit formation requires recurring organic exposure on other networks. Said another way: after people install your app, they need to see your content elsewhere to remind them that your app exists (e.g., Instagram photos on Facebook, TikTok videos on Instagram). View Tweet
People download apps to solve core human needs (1) finding love, (2) making or saving money, and (3) play. People rarely take time out of their day for anything else. View Tweet
Never build an app to “meetup with friends.” View Tweet
The only way to push through the noise of the App Store is to be unapologetic about marketing to your first users. If your first users are Berkeley students, go ahead & call the app Berkeley Memes. It’s hard enough to get the flywheel spinning without being obnoxiously relevant. View Tweet
Great products take off by targeting a specific life inflection point, when the urgency to solve a problem is most acute. Facebook ➝ Starting at a school Linkedin ➝ Getting your 1st job Slack ➝ Starting a company View Tweet
Audiences that exhibit obsessive behavior tend to be the best beachhead for new products—such as gamers, teens, and hobbyists. You need this obsessive engagement at the beginning to get the flywheel spinning. View Tweet
The number of social products that took off among older audiences can be counted on 1 finger. Our habits become immutable as we exit our formative years. View Tweet
Don’t worry about Facebook: incumbent advantage is frequently overstated. Well-crafted products that harness unique distribution channels can take the world by storm—sometimes in a matter of days. And if the product is retentive, investors will line up to bankroll your growth. View Tweet
Positive feedback loops are necessary to reach “escape velocity.” One heuristic I’ve aimed for is for each app session to trigger 7 new people to open your app. The engagement loops on Tinder and Snapchat demonstrate how these loops can create explosive engagement. View Tweet
If your product offends someone, it’s probably one version away from something special. View Tweet
If it’s been 6 months and you still haven’t tested on an external audience yet, you’re probably in for a rude awakening. View Tweet
If your product requires a “partnership”, run. View Tweet
Every blockbuster product is an outlier, breaks the rules and may have been the result of luck or timing. So all you can do is get to know your user better than anyone else and trust your instincts. View Tweet
Very few people in this industry have have seen the inflection point of product-market fit first hand. Even for the founders who have seen it, take their advice with caution—including all the suggestions in this list. View Tweet
