StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Brian Norgard

Former Chief Product Officer, Tinder · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

executivefounderinvestoroperator@briannorgard ↗briannorgard.com ↗

Brian Norgard is the former Chief Product Officer at Tinder, where he led features including Tinder Gold, Super Like, and Boost. He previously founded Tappy and Newroo, and is an active angel investor in technology companies.

15statements → 3claims → 2claims resolved → 4.27/5average certainty → 2.27/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 1said about them ↓

2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 2 assertions · 2 opinions · 10 insights · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Brian argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
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…”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 10:39 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

How they sound: speaking style how? →

258 words/min while actually speaking · 0.4 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Brian Norgard: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 25 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.0/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 4,730 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Brian Norgard is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 3/10
setup questions received 75%

Everything Brian Norgard said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Not checkable as stated
Norgard: Incoming wave of crypto will transform mobile landscape
“Now, some of the biggest opportunities in mobile have probably been picked over, but right now, just wait, this whole wave of crypto that's coming is going to change the game yet again.”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 30:38 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
Insight
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…”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 13:28 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
Insight
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.”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 17:14 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
Opinion
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.”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 20:43 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
Opinion
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.”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 27:15 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
Insight
Norgard: All prescriptive advice is flawed without contextual evaluation
“I think all prescriptive advice is wrong. Advice is something that you have to learn how to absorb, and it's completely contextual.”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 28:49 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
Insight
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…”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 6:51 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
Insight
Norgard: Complexity is the primary reason tech products fail
“And the number one reason why products fail is because they're too complicated.”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 7:51 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
Insight
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…”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 8:25 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
Insight
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…”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 9:32 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
Insight
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 …”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 10:22 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
Assertion Supported
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…”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 10:39 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
Insight
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 Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 18:08 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
Insight
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 Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 18:53 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
Assertion Supported
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…”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 25:05 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

The other half of the tape: Brian Norgard's own voice is left out of every number here. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Statements about Brian Norgard, by other people (1)

Assertion Supported
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.”
Harry Stebbings Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 0:25 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

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Former Tinder CPO Brian Norgard on His Biggest Product Takeaways from Launching the Jul 26, 2019 21m
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more