‍Introduction

Nikita Bier's entrepreneurial journey is nothing short of remarkable. With the creation, growth, and sale of two similar social media apps, TBH and Gas, he transformed teen crushes into a multimillion-dollar empire. This is the wild story of innovation, resilience, shrewd marketing, and relentless pursuit of success.

Early Days of Entrepreneurship at UC Berkley

Bier's entrepreneurial journey started in 2010 with his company, Midnight Labs, which produced digital products and applications. But he saw a slight hike later as a Public Policy student at UC Berkeley. In 2012, he made an app called Politify that helped users decide which of the two candidates' elections would benefit them more. This app caught the attention of the masses and reached 4 million people in no time. 

Around the same time, he launched a local social media app for Berkley students called Five. With these apps, young Nikita also bagged the top spot in the "2012 CITRIS innovation contest."

Next, in 2013, through his venture Outline.com, he aimed to democratize data, empowering governments for informed policymaking and engaging the public. At TechCrunch Disrupt, Outline collected an $850K seed round involving the Knight Foundation Enterprise Fund, Esther Dyson, and the Dorm Room Fund. Also, they secured a deal with Massachusetts to license their Budget Simulator pending contract talks.

However, Nikita was aiming at something bigger than that! 

Part 1: The Inception of TBH

A Struggle to Find the Right Product

Nikita Bier founded Midnight Labs in 2010, experimenting with various app ideas. The journey was fraught with challenges, from personal finance apps to college chat apps, but nothing truly resonated with the masses.

Between 2010 and 2017, he and his company launched 14 different applications, all of which had to shut down because they didn’t see success. Clearly, Nikita was a passionate entrepreneur, as no amount of failure was enough to stop him on his journey!

The Birth of TBH

With Midnight Labs, Nikita and his team continued developing and launching apps for teenagers and young adults for seven years. Eventually, in 2017, they had just 60 days of cash left. 

At this time, Nikita had spoken to his lawyer about how he could liquidate his business. During that time of struggle and cash crunch, a unique concept was born: TBH, or To Be Honest. Nikita Bier's idea for TBH stemmed from the intention to provide a positive and anonymous social media space for high school students to exchange compliments. 

After seven years of trial and error on failed applications and with just two months of capital left, the five-person team got philosophical in their approach and wanted to create something missing from the internet space. 

They created social media based on love and positivity as a final product to save their sinking ship. Their team worked backward! Meaning they first imagined the kind of notifications one would like to receive. For example, imagine being notified about “the biggest underdog” or “the best dressed” message by an anonymous source. 

This app tapped into a prevalent trend on Instagram, allowing users to compliment their friends anonymously through polls without any text, minimizing negative comments.

Strategic and Explosive Growth

The TBH team employed clever marketing strategies without spending any hefty marketing budgets. They used a similar roadmap to that of Facebook by starting locally. 

They introduced TBH to a Georgia school, swiftly gaining 40% user adoption on day one. Its organic expansion spanned three more schools the following day and then rapidly scaled to 300 schools. Remarkably, TBH refrained from spamming user contacts for invites.

Like Facebook, TBH's initial launch was limited to specific states because its effectiveness relied on a substantial friend presence. The controlled release strategy sustained high demand. Expanding to places like New York fueled classroom conversations, prompting widespread teen downloads.

Further, by using teenagers’ Instagram profiles, which state their high school data, the team would navigate to a school's location page and follow all accounts associated with that school's name. They would then send invites to those profiles and get them on the app.

Another thing that worked for TBH was its copywriting that catered to Gen-Z’s lingo and had slang like “slide into DMs,” “most lit,” etc. With features like Gems, Polls, Address books, and control over cyberbullying, the app was built for virality! 

Strategies like these led to the organic growth of the app, with 5 million downloads and 2.5 million daily active users in 9 weeks. Investors and buyers took notice.

Acquisition by Facebook

In just 48 days after the app was launched, Facebook acquired TBH for $30M in 2017, seeing potential in its rapid growth among teenagers. Imagine having 60 days of cash left for the company to survive and selling an app for $30M just twelve days before you run out of it!

While, on the surface, this looks like an overnight success, Nikita and his team at MidnightLabs had to fail 14x for the last seven years before landing a viral app! 

Nikita Bier

Unfortunately, due to diminishing daily active users, Facebook shut down TBH in 2018. However, Facebook “acqi-hired” TBH, and as a part of the agreement, the entire team started working at Facebook, including Nikita, who worked as a Product Manager at Facebook between 2017 and 2021. 

Part 2: The Resurgence with Gas

Lessons Learned and a New Beginning

Nikita's time at Facebook served as both a period of reflection and planning. Driven to dispel the notion that he was a 'one-hit wonder,' he eagerly awaited the expiration of his non-compete clause in 2022.

The Launch of Gas

Gas, fundamentally TBH with a twist, was launched in August 2022. The twist was a paywall that allowed kids to pay to see who complimented them. 

With an ambitious goal of making $10M in 90 days, Nikita and his small team deployed similar growth strategies to TBH, such as targeting high schools via Instagram.

The idea behind Gas

The app was based on the concept of teenagers complementing or “gassing” each other up! The idea worked because, unlike Instagram, which has been accused of being “toxic” on the mental health of its users, this app actually was spreading positivity with compliments! 

Gas was designed to build the self-esteem of teens, and it spoke to them in their “Gen-Z lingo,” which is probably why it caught their attention. The following video shows how the app works. 

New social media app has teens sending only positive messages

Overtaking Giants

Gas quickly became a sensation, overtaking TikTok and BeReal in the App Store charts, even limited to only 12 states. The Wall Street Journal named Gas the "hottest app right now" as it attracted more than 1 million daily active users and 30,000 new users per hour in October, just two months after its launch in August. 

Part 3: Discord's acquisition and expansion beyond gaming

Discord’s New Direction

Discord, primarily a gaming community platform, was actively pursuing a broader audience. Acquiring Gas was a strategic move in line with their expansion plans, which included YouTube integration, a $2.99 Nitro Basic subscription, and monetization options for users.

Acquisition Details and Continuation

In January 2023, Discord acquired Gas for a low 8-figure sum, with Nikita and his team joining Discord. The app would continue as a standalone product, contributing to Discord’s continued growth outside the gaming community.

Part 4: Reflections and takeaways

Controversies and Public Perception

While lauded for his entrepreneurial spirit and innovation, Nikita's marketing strategies, targeting teenagers' insecurities, were not without criticism. His stance on crypto and other public statements added to the debate surrounding his image.

Lessons from Nikita Bier's Journey

Two critical takeaways emerge from Nikita's journey:

• Acquiring users requires the same, if not more, intensity as building a product.
• Persistent determination and a willingness to challenge the status quo can lead to incredible success.

Expanding the second point! If we look at the thirteen-year journey of Nikita, we find that he had only marginal breakthroughs initially. His venture “Outline” had mild success as compared with his later ventures. 

There were seven years of silence before TBH blew up and then another five years of tiny gains, after which Gas had a breakthrough! When it comes to virality, we all can learn from philosophies of nonlinear and exponential gains and the Pareto 80/20 principle, which viral creators consciously or unconsciously follow! 

Also, for more than a decade, the guy made various products for more or less the same target audience: teenagers and young adults. He had a good experience and understanding of the market, backing him on his ventures!

Conclusion

Nikita Bier's story with TBH and Gas is a masterclass in the entrepreneurial hustle, creative marketing, product innovation, and resilience. By effectively selling the same app concept twice, he turned simple teen interactions into a $50 million success story.

However, it’s also important to keep in mind that both his viral apps, TBH and Gas, saw a decline in users and eventually shut down months after the acquisition, which questions their sustainability. But still, they served their purposes of expansion to the companies that acquired them. 

Meaning Discord, after buying Gas and Facebook, after buying TBH, onboarded many new users on their platforms and acquired their data. 

Whether seen as a controversial figure or an inspiring entrepreneur, Nikita's impact on the social media landscape, especially within the American high school teen demographic, is undeniable. His story serves as an inspiration and cautionary tale for future entrepreneurs, highlighting both the opportunities and ethical considerations inherent in rapid innovation and growth.

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