Jul 26, 2019 · 34m · 20vc
20VC: Former Tinder CPO Brian Norgard on His Biggest Product Takeaways from Launching the Top Grossing App in the World, The Top 10 Reasons Why Products Fail Today & How The Best Founders Assess Risk and Use It
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of The 20 Minute VC, host Harry Stebbings interviews former Tinder Chief Product Officer Brian Norgard about his approach to product design, the key reasons why startups fail, managing feature risk, and his transition into supporting founders through angel investing.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 35.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 2.8 Guest teaching 3.8 Guest disagreement 2.1 Harry pushing back 1.3
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 13:27 Fundamental rejection of new behaviors concept
Brian strongly rejects Harry's framing on market creation, stating he fundamentally dismisses the idea of new human behaviors.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 13:00 Pushing back with Snapchat ephemeral messaging counterexampleHarry directly challenges Brian's stance on user behavior by arguing Snapchat created an entirely new market with ephemeral messaging and filters.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 20:43 Reframing VC buzzwords as meaningless to real customersBrian reframes Harry's question about 10x improvements and painkiller versus vitamin analogies, dismissing them as empty tech jargon that consumers do not care about.
Harry holds his own ▶ 16:48 Citing Henry Ward and Carta's viral cap table acquisition loopHarry demonstrates sharp product knowledge by referencing Henry Ward's playbook of embedding investor and VC cap table invites directly into Carta's distribution.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brian Norgard's Early Career and Journey to Tinder | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Harry asks an engaging question referencing Jeff Morris Jr regarding applying an investor mindset to product. Brian gently reframes this, explaining that product design is a personal, artistic, and zen-like experience distinct from investing. | |
| Navigating Market Cycles and Product Obsession | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry prompts Brian on how macro downturns affected his product philosophy. Brian explains that market cycles do not change customer-centric product goals and breaks down the primary three reasons why products fail out of the gate. | |
| Holding the Line and Radical Product Simplicity | 5 | 6 | 7 | 5 | Harry pushes back on Brian's premise about user behaviors by bringing up Snapchat's ephemeral messaging as market creation. Brian forcefully rejects the framing, stating he fundamentally dismisses the notion of new behaviors because human biology and psychology have been set for 200,000 years. | |
| Overcoming Fear, Baking Distribution, and Launching in Communities | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Harry demonstrates strong product knowledge by citing Henry Ward's strategy at Carta regarding baked-in distribution loops. Brian agrees and highlights the necessity of finding and serving micro-communities of early adopters. | |
| Scaling Beyond Early Adopters and Focusing on True Customer Value | 3 | 5 | 5 | 2 | Harry asks whether a product must be a 10x improvement using the standard painkiller versus vitamin analogy. Brian bluntly dismisses the framing, criticizing VC tech jargon and noting that everyday consumers do not care about these definitions. | |
| Fostering a Culture of Feature Risk and Building for Yourself | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry guides the discussion toward feature risk and personal motivation. Brian details why building products for oneself is the purest starting point for understanding user needs. | |
| The High-Stakes Launch of Tinder Gold | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Harry asks Brian about key career inflection points. Brian delivers an introspective answer detailing his intense personal fear and uncertainty prior to launching Tinder Gold. | |
| Avoiding the Hedonic Treadmill and Celebrating Milestones | 3 | 4 | 3 | 1 | Harry leads a rapid-fire sequence. Brian offers strong opinions, arguing that all prescriptive advice is wrong and criticizing capitalism's continuous hedonic treadmill. | |
| Brian Norgard's Future Vision and the Spearhead Program | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Harry asks about upcoming projects. Brian details his work with Spearhead alongside Naval Ravikant, and Harry warmly expresses admiration for the initiative. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Tinder created over $11B in market value in under three years
“In less than three years, Tinder created over eleven billion dollars in market value, and with Brian's creation of Tinder Gold, Superlike, and Boost, the platform has seen over two hundred million downloads, and created millions of matches.”
Norgard: Customer focus matters more than market cycles for product builders
“I'm usually thinking about the customer so aggressively, and I'm thinking about the promise to the customer so aggressively that these ups and downs in the market and the market cycles, they don't impact me as much. Clearly, you want to have capital. To weathe…”
Norgard: Complexity is the primary reason tech products fail
“And the number one reason why products fail is because they're too complicated.”
Norgard: Organic traction relies on how users explain products to friends
“Most products are still spread through word of mouth, and one of the most important sort of tests that I use is what I call, how does the friend explain it? What I mean by that is, what you tell a customer your product does is not interesting. That's not relev…”
Norgard: World-class products stem from rapid, constant background testing
“The best products in the world are all children of what this rapid iteration, this testing, this like sort of zealot like testing framework where they're trying one thing, they're trying another thing, a new interface, new button, A new login path, a different…”
Norgard: Founders must hold the line on product simplicity to succeed
“Your product, and you as a founder, you have to stand for something, and if you don't know what that is, your customer certainly won't know what that is either, and so when you stand for something, and you say, this is who we are, this is the product, and you …”
Norgard: Tinder succeeded by stripping dating down to a photo and binary opt-in
“One of the interesting stories around Tinder was just Radical simplicity. It brought the online dating pretender. You had to fill out all these forms and menus, and you had to talk about future goals and whether you like long walks on the beach. And I remember…”
Norgard: Startups cannot create new human behaviors, only unlock existing ones
“So I fundamentally do not believe in quote unquote new behaviors. Humans have been around for 200,000 years. We're wired a certain way. We have an incentive system that has developed over many, many thousands of years in our brains, and I fundamentally dismiss…”
Norgard: Baking distribution directly into product experience is required for growth
“Frankly, I think it's the only way to build product is to make it endemic to the experience and baking it in is sort of fundamental for a product to grow in a proper fashion.”
Norgard: Startups must worship early adopters to drive product growth
“You should worship your early adopters. They're everything. They will take you to the highest of highs. They will show you the way. They will help explain the product to friends, and they will do your work for you, but you have to go find those people”
Brian Norgard: Scaling a product inevitably alienates early power users
“You would always hope the transition is smooth as you start to scale, but in reality, you always are going to alienate some of your earliest customers, and it's a really painful process.”
Brian Norgard: Everyday customers do not care about VC startup jargon
“There's a lot of these tea jargon that's Thrown around painkiller versus vitamin, 10 X, a hundred X. I really don't know what any of that stuff means, and I really don't think normal customers care either.”
Norgard: Tinder Gold launch became highest-grossing app in App Store
“Probably the largest inflection point for myself was the launch of Tinder Gold. And Tinder Gold today has been this enormous success since number one, the highest grossing app in the app store, and all of these amazing things that we're not worthy of, that are…”
Norgard: Capitalism's hedonic treadmill forces relentless, unrewarding acceleration
“What I dislike about capitalism personally the most is this idea of the hedonic treadmill. You just keep running, you keep running it. If you're able to run at a 12 pace, you should be at 14.”