Brian Norgard
Former Chief Product Officer, Tinder. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
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.
1shows
1appearances
15statements
2resolved
2supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything Brian Norgard said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
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.”
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.”
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: 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.”
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.”
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 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.”
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…”
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)
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.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Brian's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 20VCLEDGER | Former Chief Product Officer, Tinder | 1 | 15 | 100% 2/2 | full record on 20VC → |