# The 25-Year-Old App Designer Who Got 250 Million Downloads

Channel: Brett Malinowski
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9x2MkiZqIo
Duration: 1 hr 11 min
Language: English
Words: 16257
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/H9x2MkiZqIo

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[0:00] And we did all 250 million downloads with no marketing, zero dollars, 100% organic. That is crazy, bro. As a marketer, like I can't even imagine. It's [ __ ] crazy, man. It's crazy. It's crazy. How much money do you make? My companies have done over $50 million in revenue over the last few years. And how old are you? I'm 25. Okay. What do you do? Um,

[0:22] I'm a uh I'm an app designer by trade. That's where I started. And then I became a co-founder and entrepreneur of some of the biggest social media uh apps in the world for Gen Z. Which one was it? So my biggest one uh it's called NGL. It's a anonymous Q&A app for Instagram and um that one did over 250 million downloads since 2022. It's been number one on the charts for um I mean it's been number one in every country. I think over 150 countries. And um yeah, it's it's a gift that keeps on giving. I I'm shocked that it continues to grow to this day. To be honest with you,

[0:58] everyone in this office knew what it was when I told them you were coming today. So that means so much to me, bro. That's crazy. Yeah. I never expected that. It's cool, bro. And it's actually like you've done this so young, but like as I was just saying off camera, like out of all the people, I met you a few years ago, even before you really had done anything, and it was like you were like one of the no-brainer like this dude's gonna he has ambition, he's sharp, he has like intention. And so I appreciate that, bro. Huge congrats for your

[1:19] company. from afar and we've never really thought about it cuz you really kind of grew this through like all word of mouth viral like mechanisms through the app. Yep. And so I guess NGL is what is it in the first place to start there? Yeah. I mean NGL is uh it's an anonymous Q&A app. So it allows you to essentially post a link on your Instagram story, on Snapchat, anywhere on the internet. you post a link, people will tap the link, open up a web page, they can send you messages anonymously, you get them on the app, and then you can reply publicly on Instagram. So, it's just like an

[1:57] anonymous version of Instagram's existing feature. And um yeah, there's like different premium things that we that we, you know, offer, you know, different like link tools and stuff like that, but it's used by both creators and by just regular people. Yeah, I remember doing this with like something called like Ask FM way back in the day when I was like literally in middle school. And it was like a cool way for you to like ask your peers like questions without them knowing who was asking. I Yeah, I remember ask FM and and there was uh there was Yik Yak at one point when I was in school. Yeah. So there's always

[2:25] one and it's funny cuz I I kind of created the one for the younger generation now. So it's uh it's an honor. So is that kind of like what was the philosophy behind had you had tried a few before this like social apps? Yeah. So this was my eighth app actually. Oh [ __ ] Really? Yeah. I was

[2:39] Yeah, I was um I had had some successes. So my my first one um did not work at all. It was called leader. It was like um Gen Z fourquare. So it was like go to locations, pick up points, rank on leaderboards. It was like trying to solve the problem of like people want to see cooler content online from people

[2:55] doing things. Um it was overengineered. It was not good. I was young. I was 18. I didn't know what I was doing. So COVID came and obviously can't go anywhere. Can't pick up points. The whole app just was over. So I was just like, "Okay, well I I love building apps." So that I know I love but this is not the app for me. Six weeks later I built an app called Zoom University with um some friends of mine. This was 2020 right when the pandemic hit. And we saw the problem of like college kids were bored and lonely because they went from like dating on campus to like now they're all

[3:26] at home. Yeah. And you know we looked at it as well let's just build like something that's super meaningable and really like viral. So we built Zoomu and it was a college double dating app. So it was like live video double dating. So, you and I would have a room and then like a girl and her friend would have a room and then we'd merge the rooms. So, it' be a four-way chat and then you and I had a private would have a private chat and then the girls would have a private chat. So, the girls were like, "These guys are weird. We can like let's

[3:50] leave." Then they have to both tap skip and then it would go and skip to the next person and then if you matched you would get thrown into a group chat so you guys could just exchange information and like hang out IRL if you wanted to. That's honestly such a cool idea because then you feel a little more comfortable

[4:02] meeting random people. You do. You do. Yeah. It was it's like um it's funny. We had a 7 to1 girl to guy ratio on a dating game. That makes so much sense actually. It makes total sense. I remember when I saw the numbers I was like I was like first of all it's a great problem to have in some ways but also a hard problem when it comes to like matching people cuz you need to like So we had like a whole you know this whole like mechanic that we built and different waiting list mechanics everything. It was a great app. It went viral for that moment. Did maybe a

[4:29] couple hundred thousand downloads went top 10 in social. It was the first one where I was just like okay this is possible. like I can actually do this. Um, and then I was recruited by the former president of Musicly who led the bike dance acquisition and um, you know, for a billion dollars which was insane. You know, he recruited me when I was 21 and we built maybe half a dozen apps together and uh, the biggest one is called Wink. It's one of the largest make new friends apps in the world. Like uh basically the way it started was um people were lonely and young people just

[4:59] didn't have a lot of friends on Snapchat because you know the amount of followers on Instagram versus Snapchat's like pretty pretty stark difference on average. So we just thought well let's just make a really easy way for anyone to just like connect their Snapchat and then just like start swiping. Swipe left, swipe right. So um that one did probably 60 or 70 million downloads. Um

[5:18] then I built a bunch of like Oh my god. Yeah. Crazy. Uh once again it was it's not it wasn't the plan. It was it just kind of happened um with the product and then um yeah then I built a bunch of like dating apps other things here and there and then ultimately um built NGL and then that's kind of what freed me from working a 9 to5 and you know allowed me to kind of zoom out and focus on bigger things. That's so cool. How did you like come to the conclusion that like I'm sure you were aware of ask FM and Yik Yak and then like this is

[5:46] obviously like just a newer the new social platforms new way to build it. Those haven't been around for a while. So like how did you come to the decision to choose NGL for that specific attempt? So it's funny we created the like the idea for it um was like supernatural of like Instagram had rolled out a feature. This was October of 2021. Yes. Uh when they allowed everyone to post links. So it used to be it had 10,000 followers to post a link on your story. They just switched it randomly one day and my friends and I were just like all working in apps, you know, knew

[6:19] each other and literally were just like we have to build this. We just kind of this these are like app guys. We had been in the game for a while. We we had, you know, seen other apps blow up similarly and we were like wait this is like a whole new channel for you know this one you know super popular type of app that's happened so many times over the course of the internet. So we were just like well like everyone's going to build this. We thought like we thought we had found something that like everyone knew. It was like an obvious play and then for 6 months nobody used

[6:49] it. So it was kind of like and nobody cloned us for the first six months until it went viral. So literally after 6 months after launching like no traction almost no traction like essentially none. Yeah. Okay. So what happened? So uh this was April May of 2022. Um, randomly it popped off in New Zealand in Australia because we had some influencer that we paid, you know, $50 to post the link on her story and she had some follower that lived in New Zealand that was like popular in high school and that person posted it which then activated like the whole school. And then we watched it kind of move slowly, but it

[7:25] wasn't fully like it wasn't permeating out as much as we wanted it to like because I was we was watching the Firebase graphs just seeing like where everybody was and it was like you know it was like New Zealand there's like a little bit Australia but then it' be back to New Zealand. So we were like okay we haven't fully cracked it yet. So we we basically went back to the drawing board. We realized that we were blowing up in an area that was very Android

[7:47] heavy. So we didn't have an Android app. So, we're like, well, it's it's not moving. It's not scaling because you're like, you know, half the people or so are not able to download the app. And um so we just literally called up a friend. Um and we was like, we need an Android app. How fast can you do it? And he's like, okay, three weeks. So, literally three weeks we build the Android app, get it out as quickly as possible, get it on the app store, and then we push Tik Toks because we're like, I we knew this would it would work because it had this like small scale um you know,

[8:17] version of working. We pushed Tik Toks. I think it was probably five or 10 Tik Toks in total that we ended up pushing out. One of them got a million views and that was it. And we never paid for marketing again. Really? And we did all 250 million downloads with no marketing, zero dollars, 100% organic. That is crazy, bro. As a marketer, like I can't even imagine. That's [ __ ] crazy, man. It's crazy. It's crazy. So the Australian was the Australian person the first person you ever paid or had you tried a little bit or what was special about We had tried a little bit

[8:49] something with that influencer something with that influencer just it just worked. Um we had I mean we spent about I'd say between5 and $10,000 marketing the product. It like and I say that well yeah I mean we spent a few thousand on a domain we never used so like I think it was total expenses was like 10 grand. marketing expenses were like was like somewhere between yeah five and 7K of just testing you know just like paying here and there and it's funny because the the video that blew up it went viral. So, like I was working a job at the time and so was my co-founder. So,

[9:18] we didn't have any money and we agreed on like a CPM deal with this creator and it got a million views and we were like, "Wait, we owe her three grand." And it's like my buddy's like, who's my co-founder? He's like, he's like, "We should take it down." Like, you know, we should we should take we should take the video down. And I was like, "Well, we don't have the money to

[9:36] pay her, so like sure, take it down." And and we took the video down. It didn't matter because it it already activated. We later paid her like a lot more for her help. Um, but uh it was just really funny because it was so like just random. It went from it was like a thousand downloads in a day and then within a very short amount of time within a few days it was 1.5 million

[9:55] downloads in a day. Oh my god. Yeah. Like 90,000 downloads an hour. Like every time you blink there's like hundreds of people coming in. It's crazy. So I will say this was by design. Yes. This is you you designed it specifically for this reason. Yeah. And you proved that critical mass in Australia. bet your final $5,000 on these influencers. Had one that was probably a little too successful because

[10:16] you couldn't afford it at the time. True. But it triggered what you needed it to trigger for your product to shine. Yes. And you calculated this result essentially. Yeah. So, how did that happen? What was the like how did you make it grow to 150 million people, 250 million people by itself? You know, it's

[10:34] um it's a really really good viral loop. That's like the That's honestly like the truth because the way NGL works is like, you know, your first experience with NGL is seeing your friend post it, right? That's always your first experience. So, you immediately have this like um stamp of approval that your friend thinks it's cool and therefore it is cool because that's how young people work. You know, if your friends are doing it, then it's socially acceptable. If they're not doing it, then it's not acceptable. So, you know, I you you'll see it on my story. You'll tap my link. You know, maybe you ignore it the first time, but

[11:05] maybe you see it five more times on other friends stories. You're going to tap the link and then you're going to realize, oh, it's a messaging thing. Let me send a message and then we have a big button after you send the message that says get more messages or like get your own messages. And um everybody would download it because their friend posted it, their friend did it, they sent a message, so they knew essentially what it would be like to be on the receiving end. So then they're just like, "Oh, well, let me just post the link because I already know what it's like." So it

[11:31] was a really like comfortable environment for people. The biggest hurdle was just getting enough people to download it within like a tight amount of time because we needed like you know the key was like that thousand users in one day threshold. When we hit that it was like something with the friend graphs where like the the the the Instagram friend graph the story essentially like the uh the NGL story permeated the entire friend graph of these thousand people and then it was allowed to just like extend outward. So like because of the Android, right? That was the one thing that the Android app was the key for the expansion and the

[12:05] permeation. Why? Just because so many people have Android and you just didn't think that. I was I was kind of in this like iOS bubble. I'll be honest with you. I was in that bubble. So Android's just more affordable and so more people have them. It's more affordable. It's bigger in developing countries. It's it's bigger all over. I mean most countries except for like tier one or like US you know it's did you see that it was like a school by school basis of because like I think the you said fringaph that's a cool concept and you're so you're saying like basically if it caught like five people in one

[12:35] school it would basically eat the whole school like everyone would use it in that one school but would did you see that some entire schools were using Android like was it like actually like a cultural thing like the norm in this school everyone has iPhones based off of peer pressure and the norm in this school is everyone has Androids it was like I mean in a way yes I think we we didn't like care too much to track to track that but we what we did find is that like you know we were activating schools one by one prior to it going viral. So like the you know when we were

[13:01] doing all the influencer experiments we were also doing like you know how do we activate this in a random high school in the middle of the country you specifically targeting like one sometimes we would do that. Yeah. And it wouldn't always work right. This is I I used that tactic on other apps in the past. Friends of mine had used the tactic. So we were just like trying things because like the number one thing is like prove the product by seeing if these people use it and then it spreads to everybody in their school. And if you can prove that once in a small scale it'll work globally basically. So that's

[13:28] like your sole focus when building these viral apps. Yeah. It's almost like I like in a way it's like these like economies of scale, but like just it's like you just have to crush it at that small friend graph scale and like get everyone to use it because if you can ace that then it's really easy to bring everybody else in. It was just hard to get to that point. Gotcha. Define friend graph. What does that mean? Friendraph is just like the amount of people that you know and that I know. And this could be people you know IRL, online, school, job, whatever. And then the friend graph

[14:00] is also includes the mutual friends that you and I share, right? So, you know, basically most I mean there's like a saying, right? Everyone's within seven degrees, you know, the whole world's within seven degrees of each other. And it's really true. So, it's like with friend graphs, they're all they're all overlapping each other. And what you have to just do is just get and expand where everyone in a friend graph like your friend graph is posting it because then a lot of your friends are also my friends which means I'm going to see it now and then it just starts to snow spread and then if you get one school

[14:29] maybe this person has a friend at a different school shows that one friend then it eats that entire school basically. Yeah, that's so cool, bro. And it's all by design. And so you have like the benefit of a viral loop, which is very unique to apps and SAS in and of itself. It's like Dropbox. Like if I was using Dropbox to send you a file, I have to send you a Dropbox link to download that file. You have to make a Dropbox account. So you get one customer could turn into a thousand. And you've mastered that. So that's tactic number one. People would see it on their

[14:55] stories with their friends, they would submit it, then they're like, I might as well use this, too. Was there any secret to onboarding itself? So, our onboarding is extremely simple. Um, now there's a little bit more into it, but when it was going viral, our onboarding was one step. Um, which was literally just um type your Instagram username. No login, no authentication, no phone number, nothing. Just like type your username. Um, because we needed to just pull your PFP. That was it. So, because we wanted to put the PFP on the

[15:27] little story asset to make it look nice. Yes. So where would people So they would the only like where would you did you have to actually have to download an app from an app store? Mhm. You you have to download the app in order to get the link to share it. Gotcha. Yeah. And so are you interfacing with the app to like make the question? Like you make the question in the app and then copy a link and post that on your story. So basically what you would do is like you would go into the app, you'd sign up and then we just give you a link and we just

[15:51] say like copy the link, share and be like a it was like a three-step tutorial, three four-step tutorial. Um because this was also before you could automatically attach links on stories which is a newer thing that happens now. This was when it was all manual. So we had to train we essentially trained like you know a quarter of a billion people on how to use the Instagram link feature cuz like nobody had known how to do that. So that was like also one of our barriers is like how do you get past that training phase? Um, so you know, we basically worked on you you would come

[16:19] into the app, you get a link, you'd share it, people would then send the messages and then you get them on the app and then you'd reply on your story and it was this interesting like kind of movement between the app and then like the Instagram web browser. Gotcha. That's really fascinating. Did people So you just like had them download the app, put their Instagram, then they got a link. Yep. And then where did the actual questions show? Inside the app. So there was like an inbox. Gotcha. And then if they wanted to share their answer, then there's a big share button. Share button on the bottom. Yes. In the app and it

[16:50] goes straight to their story. Goes right to their story. Interesting. So if someone asks you, you know, do you have a crush on someone, right? Or or some kind of question, then you can tap reply and then it would post that person's question on your story, but it's anonymous, so nobody knows. Gotcha. And what we found was that when people would post multiple replies, it would actually increase the usage of their their link because their friends would see they posted the link and then maybe the first the first few friends they don't see any replies. So they just leave. But then when they started seeing replies on your

[17:20] story, they realized, oh, other people are sending messages. This is socially acceptable. I can do this now. Um, so that's we kind of we kind of found like the sweet spot was how do we get someone to post a link and share a few replies? And that was like a perfect user in our

[17:33] mind. Post a link, share a few replies. Yeah. And it was stickier. Did you ever optimize for like screen time like on the actual app or was it more so just you want them on the stories engaging, replying? So we actually never really focused on screen time on the app. Yeah. That that was that was um it just wasn't an important metric for us. How did you monetize? So

[17:54] we monetized uh based on subscription. Uh it's like a weekly subscription in every country. Um the pricing is different depending on the GDP of the country. So interesting. Yeah, that was one of my moves. Smart. Um and uh it's like so basically if you go to Cambodia, it's going to be the cost of like, you know, an ice cream cone in Cambodia versus like coming to the US where it's more. So I did that just to kind of like make sure that anyone could use it because, you know, in some countries $10 a week is like a salary, you know, it's like you can't you can't um offer a

[18:25] product like that and I didn't want to like price out parts of the world. Um, which is why it went so viral because like I mean it's we're huge in Asia, huge in you know Middle East, North Africa. We're you know massive in like you know all the different countries because I think we just we also translated too. We translated into every single language. So the app is like localized. The pricing is you know localized as well. Everything is like it works for each country. Um which is honestly why I think it's done so well globally. Absolutely. What was like the pricing ranges for like a small like a

[18:56] smaller country to like America? uh like a dollar a week versus like $5 a week versus like $8 a week. And what were they paying for specifically? Uh paying for um essentially to get premium features inside the app which were uh there's like a feature where you can see who sends you the message based on like different factors. So like you know where is the person located? What kind of phone do they have? You know things that maybe you know because you know you're a kid. Exactly. So kids would like send I've have photos. It's really funny like kids um in school with like their notebooks and they're like, "Okay,

[19:26] this person has this phone and they live here and I think this is them." And they would they would figure it out. They would actually they' actually figure it out, but it was like hints. And then we also introduced like a thing where you could see um like viewers when people were just viewing your link. Um we just we kind of just added more to it to make it just like a better product. Um but it's very simple. Interesting. Was there anything you tried for premium that like didn't work well or like people like were got mad about? So, surprisingly, no. Nobody really got mad about anything

[19:56] and um we kept it pretty simple. Like the the nice thing about the product today is like it's just like an optimized version of what it was a few years ago. Yeah. Um we didn't change much. It seems like everything just went other than the six-month period where nothing worked or it was slow, but it seemed like once it started working, everything was like super smooth and relatively straightforward. Like a viral loop, aka when they use it, other people see it by nature and then use it and they instantly know how to use it and they can click one button to do it themselves. Like pretty simple. And then

[20:26] it just spread. Yeah. From there. And then you just tacked on a few paid features. Were there any like unexpected surprises or a lot? Okay, go give me your most interesting ones. I'm very curious. Um, I mean unexpected surprises like when it goes when you build something that goes super viral internationally like you always deal with like the weirdest requests and the weirdest emails and like you know international police forces and like like military um people. So like lots of that which I was like kind of shocked

[20:57] about. um a lot of um a lot of users that would just DM us just purely to get our attention, right? So like a lot a lot there would be a lot of that. Um I think that the biggest I mean the biggest thing that we dealt with um I'd say was just like when you go super viral super

[21:15] fast like everything is going to break. So that was like a big thing for us is just like how do we scale it? We had a couple things break. We had software providers turn us off. we had, you know, just like a bunch of things like that, like typical stuff. Um, and it was like the API usage was too high. I mean, yeah, like just doing too many billions of requests. So, it's just racking up crazy bills on, you know, on all these software platforms. Um, and then just having to like put out those fires while it's going super viral. And we we don't

[21:46] know how long it's going to go viral. So, we don't know how much money that we should be spending on these software providers. So it was a very difficult position to be in also because like with Apple you know payouts are delayed by on 60 days. So we also had no money. So it was like you know me and my co-founders were like we had to take a loan at one point because like we had to pay for all this all this software bill that like we just couldn't afford because we didn't get paid yet. Um a lot of stuff like that. Honestly the first like three to

[22:14] six months afterwards was like pretty hard. Um and then it calmed down more and now it's kind of like on autopilot. Now it's very much on autopilot. Yes. So you were you did you have monetization like pricing from day one? Yes. So you guys had that mechanism. We didn't have the different pricing from day one. We had but we had like we had different prices we were testing. Yeah. But blowing up that quickly. You're racking up huge bills without getting paid out for two or three months. Yes. That's so it's like a curse of success but also you know you're going to be able to pay

[22:42] back. But it's also like a right of passage. Like now I talk to my friends who are, you know, now like the kind of the younger kids in apps and they're like, "Yeah, bro. These Apple payouts." And I'm just like, "Don't get me started." Like I I I understand. Like I'm I'm with you. But I'm like, "Welcome to the club, right? It's just part of

[22:55] it's part of success in the app store." 100%. And it's a good problem to have. It is. So is there are there any like optimizations or like best practices when it is like getting on the app store or like any advantages you can get there? You know, the app store is a pure meritocracy. Um, which is actually why I like it. That's the reason why I really like building in it because you're kind of dealing with like you know couple hundred maybe thousand teams whatever around the world um that are all building in the same sandbox with the same device with the same amount of compute with the same you know essentual

[23:26] like just the same tools the same the same tools so it's very fair and there's no advantages you know for anything um the only advantage I would say that people should do is just like just don't just don't submit your app unless like it's mostly ready just because like you know they're just going to tell you a bunch of things you have to fix. So like try to get all those things handled first and don't just like do a long review process just cuz it gets kind of annoying sometimes. Gotcha. I'd love to go into your process now on like cuz you said you've built eight and you said

[23:56] that you're like you've and you're only 25 and it's like you how long does it take to build one of these like from like idea to like on the app store? It's so dependent on the product. So with with like NGL, it took about 3 4 weeks from the time we decided that we're going to build it to the time it went

[24:15] live v1. Oh, that's fast. Very fast. Yeah. But other apps longer. Um it it's super dependent. You know, with NGL, it's a simple app. There's not a whole lot going on. So it was okay to build that pretty quickly. Um, but if you're building like a really complicated app or like you know some kind of like photo video app where there's just like way more like storage and way more like you know things going on then it might take you longer. Are you doing any sort of like validation before you start building? Because obviously like three to four weeks is pretty quick but like how how are you deciding what idea to

[24:47] build every single time? In those days it was all based on what I believed would go viral. Just intuition. Yeah, it was all intuition with the assumption it has to be a viral. I knew that it had to be viral because in you know in a when I was building Wink um with my my first mentor, we we had this thing in the app where um you know, I'm not sure if it's there anymore, but we had this thing in the app where you would swipe right and you would um lose 10 gems. Everyone would get 100 gems for free and every right swipe would be minus 10 gems. So

[25:16] after 10 swipes, you'd basically just get like a little popup and it say, "Hey, you're out of gems. um you can buy them for 99 cents or you can share on Snapchat and that feature just got us so many organic downloads. It was like unbelievable how like just millions of organic downloads can so pay or share pay or share. So that's kind of when I when I learned I was like oh wow you can use these platforms to grow new apps like it's actually you can do it. Um, and that was what kind of gave me the the insight to then when Instagram launched the link feature, I was like,

[25:48] well, this is this is going to work because I had this previous experience on Snapchat and it already worked. And so, and you're leveraging their friend group. So, not not even followers or influencers. Like, it's actually like everyone has 10 friends. Everyone has 10 friends. Interesting. And so, there's no real validation. It's just like this has just looking if it has the mechan the

[26:07] correct mechanic to go viral on its own. Organic viral. That's your game. Like, if there's one thing people should know you for, it's like the That's the game. Organic virality through design. Yes. And then the most frictionless design onboarding as possible. Yeah. Get them in the product as quickly as possible. So, you're like a Figma Figma machine. Is that like, you know, I'm I'd say uh yeah, I I'd like to say that I'm probably one of the best people at Figma in the world. Yeah. Uh yeah, I'm really good at it because I' because I've lived in it. And it seems like you understand the psychology. Yes. And I Okay, this

[26:36] totally side note. I feel like your skill set is going to be the most valued thing in the world of AI. Dude, I hope you know that's the thing, right? Um yeah, I haven't seen any good AI UI like AI UI UX tools that are like actually really good. Like I've seen some they're like okay, but um to actually like get like with me like I started as a designer and then moved to kind of like more of like a product lead and then like just a founder. But like it's the same philosophy for me. So it's like I do my own design but like I'm doing my

[27:05] own branding. I do my own like you know color theory. I'm doing all the interfaces. I'm doing all the navigation. I'm figuring out the the uh the copy, the vibes that we're trying to portray. Like very much like just the entire product itself is like what I focus on. Did you did are you did you go to college? I was at USC for a brief time. Did you learn the stuff there or where did you learn? Um I learned through failing. Nice. You had something to build and you just went out and built it. That was my first company. I just had I had an idea and I was like I need

[27:34] to build this and then I failed. Have you always had a like a developer partner with you at all these? Like did you always like what does your team makeup usually look like as far as skill sets? Team makeup like usually um I like to have a technical lead with me. Um in the in the beginning I didn't I then later learned just through experience that that was a a good thing to do. So I basically now will have like a CTO some kind of technical lead then me and then you know either we share some kind of growth responsibilities or like I you know have a third person that comes in

[28:04] that like handles you know influencer outreach and like doing all the you know getting videos done like there's you know there's kind of like three main skills right you need the product and you need the marketing and you need the engineering. Gotcha. So, so that could be one person, it could be three people, but so like design, product design basically. It's like what it's going to be, how it's all going to work, then the person to actually build it, and then a

[28:24] person to show it off basically. Yes. Exactly. Cool. And that's like your recipe every single time now. That's the recipe every single time. It depends like how many people is like required to do the job. But like those are the skill sets that you need to have. Do you usually split equity equally or is there like what would you say as everything you've learned now? If you were to do a new app, how would you split up equity based off those roles? I definitely um I'd say I split equity way more evenly

[28:47] than most people. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. And then are you building like do you try to I I guess how do you find these people? It's just network that you have now. Is it through Twitter? Like you've like got rose up and like met more talented people as over time goes or how do you think about who you're going to build it with? It's hard to find really good engineers. Uh it's always hard. I think it's it makes it a little bit easier now that you know I do have like Twitter and like you know people do reach out to me and and I have like you know I feel like I have more of

[29:16] like a good like bench of engineers. Um but it's really hard. It's super hard because it's like you you you need people who are really about that life and you need people that like you know are going to wake up at 3 in the morning when everything's crashing, right? And it's also like if you want someone to wake up at 3 in the morning when everything's crashing, they need to have a good amount of equity in order to like do that. So that's why I'm a big

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[30:28] today. Shopify.com/wgmi. Thank you for sponsoring today's episode. Are there any like core from a psychology lens like core principles you instill in the app whether it's onboarding holistically? I really would like to know deep like you even mentioned color theory like what is the psychology behind this stuff? So I like to keep every page with like one central action because I think that people are easily distracted especially young people. So like on my apps there's always going to be a big button like an obvious big button that you're supposed to tap because I just don't want people thinking like what do I do? Where do I

[31:00] go? Because when you make people start to doubt what to do, then they start to worry that what they're doing is not acceptable because it's they don't know how to do it, right? So it's like it's like, wait, this is too confusing for me. I'm just going to go back to Tik Tok and just keep scrolling, right? Because on Tik Tok, they know what to do. They know the behavior. So you have to just make it where like every screen, every flow is very natural and the user just goes down the path and you don't over complicate it. I don't like to have like branching, you know, product flows. like

[31:29] I like to have one main onboarding flow all the way to like whatever those core metrics are depending on the product. With NGL was just like how do we get someone as quickly as possible to share the link and a few replies with other you know with other products it's different but like I don't like to have lots of things in onboarding that distract a user. Interesting. So just one core tactic whether it's a button or input they need to do it if they need to share one button. one button and make the button pulse if you want if you really want people to tap it like make

[32:00] it obvious. I feel like that's super important. Pulse like actually like design like glowing designing the the button to pulse and get bigger and like you know just call attention or the I love when like the button sometimes like wiggles you know I like to do things like that right so it's just like it's it's kind of like um it's kind of obvious but then but like a lot of people don't do that last like 5% polish. Yeah. Because that really is what gets people to like go and actually finish the experience that you want them to do. Mhm. What about color theory? Why

[32:27] are you Why is NGL red and is it yellow? Red and yellow. It's like red and orange. Red, orange, yellow. Yeah. Yeah. Um food. Is that you know McDonald's Wendy's? You know, it's it's red and orange because um Instagram is kind of pink and orange and I wanted it to look kind of good next to the Instagram icon and people like tapping red buttons. I don't know what it is. So, we put some red buttons in there. Yeah. Yeah. It's

[32:52] probably the most like popping color. Did did you ever experiment name or was it NGL from the start? It was something else from the start. It was actually Ask.f fun originally. Ah, okay. I see where they ask FM. Yeah. And that was the domain that we spent money on that never went anywhere. Um, and then I was just like randomly, this was like the spring of 2022. This was like before it went viral uh in New Zealand. And I was just like out and I just randomly was like, wait, no, it needs to be called NGL. I was just like, that's that's the name. It's like culturally relevant for

[33:22] that demographic, not going to lie. So, I literally like I saw the icon in my mind. I saw the font. I saw the vibe and I was like I ran home. I did it. I sent it to my co-founders. They're like, "Oh my god, yes." Like I I mean, if you hear NG, not going to lie, like that is like actually like the perfect summary. Do

[33:37] you think that helped like a long way? Like people got it from the name. People got it immediately because it's like, "What is that? Oh, it's NGL." It's like, "Oh, it's my NGL link." And it's like, "Oh, okay. Well, I'm not going to lie. I'm going to send anonymous messages cuz like I can just you know like the logic train makes sense instantly without instantaneous one sentence thing. That's super smart. Cool. So you can make one of these in like 3 to four weeks. What is the actual process of like okay from idea then you're just going to mock it all up in Figma and just like try to

[34:04] nail the viral loop, understand that flow. They didn't even need to connect their account. It was just put the handle. No, at the time Yeah, it was literally just put the handle. Yeah. How was it able to send it to their story? Because um we're just using the pasteboard. So like So it's copy paste a link. It's just copy paste a link and then we just autodirect them to the the Instagram pasteboard. So would it pop up in the on Instagram to like message or Yeah. It would like Yeah. When you would post the link and then it would go the it would come up like a web page. So

[34:31] it's like the user that would send the message hasn't left Instagram. Yeah. So it's the Instagram browser basically. Oh, I see. Okay. That makes a lot more sense. Wow. Okay. And then so how long does it take to like what is the breakdown of design like a week and then engineering a week or two for simple apps? Yeah, like a week. Um for I mean more complicated apps could take longer but like yeah like a week for the design

[34:51] then it would go to like the engineers. They scope it, break it into tasks, figure out how long it's going to take and then they just go module by module figure it out. Um and then I would get a build at some point and then when I get the build I would just try to break it, tear it apart. um which I'm quite good at doing with apps because I just know what to look for. Um and then we develop like a QA list, send that to the devs, they handle them one by one, get another build, go back and forth a few times until it's like ready to go, and then

[35:21] push it live. What's a QA list? Uh it's like basically like um like doing QA, like quality assurance, like you know, making sure that um you know, the product works the way it's supposed to, that you know, this button goes to the right place, that like the data is loading right. You know, there's always like tiny things that you find um that are like hard to catch unless you're like really in it. Are there any other psychology principles that you can think of off the top of your head that are like I guess social proof you said like make sure it's socially acceptable. Very

[35:48] simple one thing red buttons bright. Anything else you can think of? People want things to work the way they assume that they should work. Which is very counterintuitive to how like most things are because like it doesn't always work the way that you think it should. It's human perception more than the logical perfect system. But if it works the way you think it should work, you immediately think that the product is amazing. Could you do you have an

[36:12] example or a deeper way to explain that? Because that's really interesting. Like if you um you know, let's say that you're you go get a coffee, right? And you and you're expecting because you know, the barista's behind the counter that the coffee is going to be, you know, it's going to be made in a nice machine because you're at a nice place and it's going to have like the nice foam and everything. And then you're

[36:32] handed like a really like bad coffee. You're like, "Well, wait a second. I thought the process of getting this would be really great." And then I got this thing that's actually not as great in a paper cup. Yeah. In a paper cup. Like it's just like it's it's not it's not the vibe. It's not something I'm taking a picture of and posting on Insta. So it's an example of like if it doesn't happen the way that you think it's going to happen, you're automatically just like not really that interested in it. Do you have any way to manage the expectation on that or do you just have to like try to like look at it

[36:59] and just like make the intuition of like you're so you're actually thinking of like what the human thinks this should like yeah like what would the human do on this screen right like if the screen if this screen has this information what are they going to do where are their eyes going to look first that's like the first question is like where are their eyes going to go which is why I do the big buttons because it's like you go onto a page maybe the page says type your name you see a typing field and you see like a grayed out button So you know you can't go past it until you type. So

[37:25] it's like super obvious. And you just have to take that and you have to just expand it across the app and not just keep it in like not just the onboarding screens but like everywhere in the app. So at WAP we kind of have this thing where like you put your name name your [ __ ] put your headline and then there's you we can make it instantly but like in between we do like a 20 second like building your [ __ ] Yep. To like kind of help them get that mental frame of what they're about to land on next because if they just land there they might get like

[37:50] be so confused on what they're in. So just like a little thing like that. Things like that are great. You know, sometimes what I'll do, you know, in many of my apps, like there's like a loading thing that we have to compensate for, right? Sometimes you're loading data or you're putting together a profile, whatever it is, like there's a delay. So like, yeah, you make those

[38:05] like those like anticipation moments. Those are great because it's also it primes them too. So it's like, you know, hey, getting this ready for you, you know, ETA one minute, right? And then you get in, it's super fast and then they're like, they feel really good. They feel delighted. Maybe there's some confetti, you know, some happiness. We love confetti. We love that. That's like framing and priming. Absolutely. Cool, bro. Okay, so I know you're working on something new now, which is also very interesting and very future focused, which I love. Uh, what are you working on now? So, now I'm building a consumer crypto trading app called Bags. Um, it's

[38:37] available now on iOS and Android. The premise of it is, you know, I've been in crypto for a long time since 2017. I remember when Bitcoin was a thousand and then I saw it run up to 20 and then crash down to five. hold it the whole way down and I then just held it the whole way diamond handed and um yeah I a couple years ago I just had this belief that crypto was going to come back and you and I met during the last crypto cycle and then we had that little lull period where nothing happened and then I just kind of thought I think this is

[39:05] going to come back and I think that the the real battle of crypto is going to be fought on the app store and just mobile is going to be where crypto goes and I think it'll go more social. So I was just like placing bets. So with bags the way it works is, you know, you can sign up in 5 seconds. You can use, you know, any different email or O provider to sign up. Um, you create a profile in seconds. You can fund your wallet with Apple Pay. You can buy memecoins within 60 seconds and then you can follow your friends and if you trade, I get to see what you

[39:37] traded. Oh, it's public. Yes. You could see, which is kind of the point of blockchain, which you could see your friends trade. So like you invite me, I can literally follow you and be like, "Oh, is there like a leaderboard?" Oh, there's Yeah, there's leaderboard. There's everything. Yeah. I I don't know if people aren't in crypto, I don't think they understand how every single thing you just said is like actually like a huge innovation because having to make a wallet, put make buy money on an exchange. I believe we're kind like we're working backwards out of the like

[39:59] uh the full decentralized Yeah. Yeah. and the full decentralized glorification. Like I don't think people actually it should exist as an option, but like most people just want to put an email in, use their credit card, whatever it is, buy crypto and get in the action without having to understand all the technology behind it. Exactly. So, how's it going? because I know we just had this like bull run. So, are you happy with the adoption that you're seeing or what's been like the most interesting data points you've had? So, the interesting data point I've had is um when users fund their we call them your your bags card like the app looks

[40:30] more like a credit card wallet than like a crypto wallet. Um so, when people fund their cards, the retention is really high and the average session time is really high. So, people really care. So, I feel like now my main battle is just how do we get everyone to just fund their accounts really quickly? How do we incentivize that behavior? And um I think that's like yeah, like that's that's kind of our main focus moving forward is just how do we get to that that magic moment faster? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have futurep proofed their business with Netswuite by Oracle, the number one

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[41:38] netswuite.com/wgmi. netsweet.com/wgmi. Thank you for sponsoring today's episode. Yeah, I was at lunch yesterday with a with a friend of mine and, you know, he just kind of explained how his magic moment was just how easy it was that he just like literally tapped Apple Pay and then went through like a two-step thing and then he bought a memecoin and then he was like up a bunch of money and he sold it and he profited and he was just telling me how how like it literally happened so quickly for him and that it just like it made sense to him so perfectly. So, I feel like we just have to get that life

[42:06] cycle from you download the app to like you invest in your first memecoin to then you lock profits, right? How do you get them to fully understand it? And so the viral mechanic is that your friends are there and you can see how much your friends are trading basically. Yep. Interesting. Does it send notifications to them? I guess it sends notifications if I subscribe to you and you So you

[42:25] subscribe to people. Yes. Interesting. And you you can subscribe to anyone, not just people on bags. It's like Yeah. It's like connect your contacts. Yeah. And if you're any any other wallet essentially. So you know like you know top we have like top traders you know we've got you know top P&L traders just you know we have a we have a the bags for you page we call it which is the home screen of the app where you can scroll and you see how much people bought, sold, how much they're holding, what what are they up or down. Um we have live charts, live data. Uh we have

[42:55] basically every data point that you would want on any of the like you know large like um the large platforms for just like you know um finding coins. We have all those data points. We've got filters. Um, and we're still building it out. Is it like an actual exchange like Coinbase? Like it's a DEX. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. And then I'm assuming you just take fees. Yeah, we take fees and then we pass back the majority of the fees to um you know, people that are trading actively. Um because essentially if you come into the app and you trade and then I see your trade in the feed and then I copy your

[43:28] trade in the feed, you're going to make money from that. um if you come into the app and you get a thousand followers, right? And um those people then trade based on what you're trading yourself, you would earn the fees from those people or like the majority of the fees. So we'll take that 1% fee that's kind of industry standard, but we pass back the

[43:47] the majority of it um to the users. Interesting. So it's like social trading. It's very social. People talk to each other on there. Yep. There's uh there's uh group chats, so people can basically create their own room and just like have like a like a trading group. literally a trading group and you can do it all natively. You don't have to leave and switch apps. Everything's in the one place. Interesting. What is your philosophy on like when to market

[44:08] something like this? This was a different one for sure. Um, honestly, I started marketing it once we fixed enough of the bugs. This was a very um performance intensive product because, you know, you're dealing with lots of data. you're dealing with, you know, like everyone has a finite amount of memory on the iPhone. Um, so it's like you can't do the same things that you'd like to do. So you have to optimize everything and that's really hard. I didn't know this. Um, like a product perspective, from a product perspective, from a data perspective, just like managing all the different streams from different providers. It's it's a lot to manage um in order, but

[44:45] you have to get the best price, right? At the end of the day, like if you can't get the best data means you can't get the best price and your your people can't actually make more money. So, we focused a lot of our attention on performance um the last few months. We launched the app in November and then we just were like performance performance performance heads down making the app

[45:03] really good and um and now it's great. Now we land 99.9% of transactions in you know in a couple of seconds max and uh it's great. Yeah, this a so this is a pretty long-term thing like long-term bet. This is a big business opportunity. It's a long-term bet for sure. I wanted to build a business that I could like build for more time and that could be something that, you know, evolves with me and also evolves with the industry itself. And I feel like crypto is just we're still so new, you know, we're only, you know, a few months into like, you know, the first, I guess, crypto,

[45:35] you know, presidency that's, you know, embracing it now. All the risk is off now. The risk is off. Embraced. Yes. Exactly. Right. So, I kind of figured this is a great time to just, you know, continue building it, iterate through everything. And, um, yeah, it's just it's a it's a good moment. That's really cool. Is this something that like dude, how many users you have? Can I ask that? Like Yeah, we So, we have over 300,000 registered profiles. Holy [ __ ] Um, active traders is a lot less than that. Um, but yeah, that's like number of people that have logged in with Twitter, connected it. It's like

[46:06] somewhere around that. So, they connect Twitter. Yep. They connect Twitter. Uh, back in the day, you could only connect Twitter. Now, you can do uh Google, Apple, email. Um, yeah. So it's like that's also one of the things we wanted to fix before marketing it is just not everybody has Twitter. So we had to kind

[46:21] of build a new off system. Interesting. It's I'm sure it's like really seasonal too like with the with the bull run. Yeah man. And this is a different kind of bull run. You know this is this we're in a weird period right now as we speak like it can go either way which is kind of the perfect time to build is like when you're in this weird middle ground period. So yeah I mean my team we're all just like just heads down. It's build time right now. prepare for the storm and then as you scale try not hopefully

[46:45] things don't break constantly, right? Yeah. So, how do you think how do you see the virality happening like the actual like social graph playing out again um with bags? I I I look at it as like it's really going to be focused on first getting people who are in like um just in finance, right? Guys that are maybe trading on Robin Hood or they're trading on Phantom already um and using, you know, different tools. Um it's about getting them because, you know, they're like or crypto curious people. I I'd say just because like there's a lot of videos on Tik Tok and Instagram blowing up of people like making money on

[47:17] memecoins especially over the last couple months. A lot of attention is is on crypto. So really like uh capitalizing on that attention you know doing lots of strategy there with UGC with videos just getting people to realize that hey you know you can download this app or you can download bags you know it's just like showing them that there is another app and here's how it works and here's the benefits of it and just pushing that out I think is like our like level one focus and then you know we've got some plans later down the line of like how to do like real massive global adoption but

[47:47] it's like one of those things again like economies of scale like let's just get it right at this stage. page. Let's figure everything out now. Let's build a great product and then we can just layer on all those growth features. Got very very opposite my other apps which is it's which is it's like weird for me but it's also like good because I wanted a new challenge. Yeah. And you're building the foundation first and you can layer those in. Do you have an affiliate deal

[48:08] for people like if they refer someone? Yeah. So on the app um you have a bags link. It's like there's literally a tab in the app that you can go to. I have an account by the way. I download this on day one supporting my boy. I love it. Um yeah. So you have a ref link. Everyone has an autoref link and then if you just post that link anywhere, send it to your friends um you get their fees. So if you have some whale friends u most percentage yeah percentage. Yeah. So you have whale friends send them your link and get them on and then you'll make

[48:34] money from them. So a fee is just like anytime they do a transaction there's like a set rate. Any transaction obviously we take no fees on you know sending and receiving of course uh only on buys and sells. Interesting. And then you said you So you're doing UGC marketing like that's something you're doing right now? Starting to. Yeah. Have you seen our content reward stuff from WAP? I haven't. No. Okay, dude. So, you said that you paid that one person on a CPM deal. So, we have an like feature

[48:55] now and it's like really picking up. Yeah. And you could literally So, you put like $5,000 you'd make like a bags [ __ ] You say we'll pay you a dollar for every thousand views and you set your content. You set your content requirements must show the bags app must talk about a crypto trade and it must put an affiliate link in your bio and then you'll just get literally like a hundred of hundreds of UGC creators submitting and you only pay after they

[49:16] create, edit, and post the content. That's beautiful. I want to talk to you about it. Oh, we're to talk about that. Yes. I want actually would love to talk about our onboarding, too. Totally. Conversation. It would help a lot% man. But okay, cool. So, it's kind of like this like foundational period where you're building out product and so your bet is that the social graph aspect of people being able to see their friends, how much they trade, and then being able to like actually talk to each other is going to be like much better than like a

[49:39] Coinbase experience pretty much. Yes. Cuz I feel like a lot of people come into crypto and they don't know what they're doing, right? I feel like that's like the biggest thing that I I've noticed with people is like, well, how do I get into crypto? Right? That's the question I ask. And it's like there's not like one place that you can tell them to go to to like be like this is how you get into crypto. That's also what we're really trying to build is like if you want to get into crypto like this is the app because you can trade and you can see who's making money and

[50:02] you can also learn how this technology works because you can talk to people. Um and like we show you like you know the top group chats based on how many people are in them. Um and like you know you can join. So, it's like people can just come in be like, "I'm new to crypto, but

[50:16] I funded my account with Apple Pay. Who's making money?" They can go to the for you page. They can see people making money. They can decide if they think that they want to buy the coin or not. See who's making money, how they're doing it? Yes. Interesting. And then do you have a way for people to find groups or is the group itself like you have to be invited by a friend? Um, there's a way to find groups. Um, and then you also can just invite your friends

[50:41] directly. Yeah. So like you there's like a you have a bags link then you have like a a you know bags chat link and then it's that also is serves as a ref link for you as well. So if you own a chat rather than you know having a telegram channel where you're posting your trades and then you know maybe you have people signing up for you know some additional software but most people aren't trading there right they're going to they're going to trade where they natively trade. Um with this it's like everyone's natively trading in one place and

[51:05] they're messaging in one place. Interesting. So, you know, we had we've like we launched that as like our first feature was like group like trading in group chats and then we realized that like we had to build better trading and we had to make sure that we could land everything and um you know performance, right? So, we kind of focused then on let's do all those things before we do more social. How long when did you start this? So, I started idiating in the summer of 23. Um we got really aggressive with it towards the end of that year. Um, and then we've been fully locked in like since the beginning of

[51:37] 2024 on this product. Did you raise it all or bootstrapped? We did bootstrapped bootstrap all the money from NGL going to a bigger bet. Cool. And then can you connect your traditional web3 wallets like MetaMask or Phantom or Currently? No, but there's some there's some things we're cooking around. Is there a reason that you would do one way or the other? Yeah, because really what we want to focus on is that you come to bags and bags is your wallet, right? Because it's an embedded wallet. So, you know, you can export your keys at any time. You can take it with you. It's not a

[52:05] custodial account like Coinbase. Okay. So, you could send Can you send money off platform? Yes. Yeah. Can you deposit straight from platform? Yes. Good product, bro. Yeah. I got to start using it. Damn. Yeah. [ __ ] Okay. Then I'm curious then what do you see like as people like start using it more? Do you see do you see this like its own category compared to like a unis swap compared to a Coinbase? or are you taking like do you feel like there's like room for all these for separate use cases or do you feel like this is like how like is it like actually a bet you

[52:40] think this is how most people will choose to engage like is it like mutually exclusive or do they all have their own like step in the ladder? It's a weird question. I'm sorry. I think for existing crypto users people are going to use a lot of different things. I think because like you know I mean that like like myself I have I don't know maybe 50 wallets maybe more. I don't know. Um but like a new person the idea

[53:02] is that they only use bags, right? That's like the that's but it's not there yet, right? We have to add more chains, you know, we have to do more we just build more features before we can actually like fully say that. Um but that is like what we're working towards. Um because I think that there will definitely be like more consumer crypto apps. Like that's just like kind of an obvious thing. Um it not necessarily is always going to stay with Coinbase and you know the you know by bit and the traditional exchanges. Um, and I do think that like, you know, what Phantom did is like Phantom really paved a way

[53:32] of like, you know, building a really really good wallet that like is somewhat normie friendly. Um, and they they've kind of acted as a great bridge. And so we're just building on top of of that like trajectory of like just moving more social, moving more towards consumer and retail. Um, and but at the same time not sacrificing like the data and the information and the performance that you would get of like a traditional exchange. Are you built on a specific

[53:56] chain? We're built on Salana right now. How do you feel about that? Uh, it's great. Super fast. Like it? I I like it a lot. Yeah. It's It seems like it's going to be the consumer chain for sure. I think it's the consumer chain. Yeah, for sure. It's interesting how they will all have like a reputation. Like each one will probably have a niche of itself and then hopefully Phantom can be like or one of these wallets can be like the rails between everything. Yeah, bridging has gotten really easy comp. It was like scary three years ago. It was really bad three years ago. Yeah. Do you think that

[54:22] you'll ever do a token? I would assume. You know, it's a scary question to me. Um I don't know the legal we'll we'll see. Yeah, we'll see what happens. You have the it's a option, I suppose. Yeah, I think it's something that like lots of crypto companies end up doing. Um we don't have any we haven't announced anything formal. Do you see this is al just a super abstract question, but do you see that doing an ICO like launching a coin would be a just instead of going public you would do that or do you see

[54:49] people doing an ICO then doing an IPO? You know, I I have this I have this thing I've talked with my co-founder about, you know, this the idea of like um ICOs kind of replacing IPOs for like modern tech companies. I do think that will happen. I just don't know what the timeline is, you know. So, you think it'll just be like it'll be a switch over not doing both. I think it I think for some companies I think for like massive scale that like is also not like you know in that environment than I think that like traditional IPO but I I could see like lots of tech companies

[55:19] and consumer apps going the crypto route um going the app token route. I could totally see it happening but I think it's going to take time. Yeah, there is really no difference between I know we call it an ICO, but like if you just made it the all the coins shares, like the coin was just a share of a company. Like I just feel like it's a way more efficient way to actually facilitate what we view as a traditional IPO. For sure it is. Yeah. Or I actually have no idea. It's going to be probably a dumb question. Hope maybe you know, but like if you buy a share on the stock market,

[55:49] is that literally just like a database entry on like a on the back end of the NASDAQ like tech stack or Yeah. I don't is there a tangible piece of paper that you get like what? I don't think there's a piece of paper. Yeah. Yeah. What is the share? It must be some kind of data entry tying it to you know the identity of the buyer something there and then the NASDAQ people just on the back end

[56:09] like actually what do they actually use? I don't know. I love I would love to know though. I would want to know. That's an interesting question. is very interesting because there's no reason that a coin can't be that because you actually have custody of the thing. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. It's probably like 20 years away, but at this rate, well, that's the thing. We're so early to this like industry like it's just like we're so new still. It's intuitive to our age group though. It is cuz I've same thing 2014 2017 like I've at least

[56:31] known what this was. Yes, exactly. Hopefully David Sachs can lead us to victory here. But Zar David Sachs coming coming in with all the regulation. You said that you were the best at Figma. What does that actually mean? like what what makes you like feel that way? Um, I just am really good at laying everything out in a really simple way from like experience uh standpoint like components like Yeah, components, varants, font styles, you know, just kind of I'm really good at all that stuff. Also like like the the complex parts of Figma u like prototyping things like just I can kind of use the whole the whole product

[57:08] really really well and I also just like yeah I've I build really beautiful looking things too quickly. Yes, quickly is the key. Interesting. Is there anything else that you think would be like I I don't really prepare and so the good thing is I like to be excited and have like passion, but is there anything that you think that I'm not like digging into that could be like uniquely valuable that you've experienced or that you've learned or done through deep experience? I mean the big thing for me was really like I I started when I was super young when I was 18. So, I tell young people all the time like just

[57:39] start, right? Like just like do it because you're not you're not going to get the money quickly. Like it's going to take some time. Like you need you need to kind of fail for a little bit. You need to cut your teeth. You need to crawl through the mud. You need to like just deal with it. So the earlier you start the better. And that's I feel like I was super blessed to just find what I love to do when I was really young. And um and just like it's the only thing I've ever done is build apps like in my whole

[58:02] career of the last eight years now. Yeah. I mean, the first time we talked, there was like like I could see like a clear ambition and not just ambition, but like a seriousness to how like intense you were thinking about what you were showing me and like how you were working on it and like the vision for it and then excitement when you were pitching it. Like it's something that you could just like feel from someone of like, okay, this kid's like really articulate, really smart, really passionate, really wants to win and is like obsessed with it. And you could just feel that very quickly. Yes. And so

[58:33] that's like it's just bet on those people every day of the week. You have to be obsessed. What was your first You said that you had a job when you were launching this stuff. Was the job design for a company or Yep. I was a I was like the only designer at a at a company like um a mobile app holding company and um that my first mentor uh was the CEO and yeah, I was just building apps. Would he was there like a tool you would use to break down like other apps like onboarding flows and then like he have you like reverse engineer them or like

[59:01] when you're just starting out, how did he like point you in that right direction? So I was already like a pretty good designer by the time he met me. That's why they brought me on is that they they saw Zoom University and they were like this looks really cool and he's young. Let's give him a shot. Um so you already made two. Yeah, I already made I already made two and um you know he he liked what he had what he had seen in me and I was super young at the time. I was 21. Um, and then really what we would just do is like we'd look

[59:27] at existing apps. We I mean we would used to like print out all the screens and put them on the whiteboard in the office and we'd go through them and figure out what we wanted to do. Um, I would just he would send me screenshots of things. We would just like it was a very it was a great relationship. you know, he he was extremely helpful to me growing up um in this industry and uh like very very grateful for the experience because I feel like I got to see how, you know, a company went from, you know, a dozen people to over 50 people and we go from fully remote to

[59:54] now we have an office and now we have a team overseas and, you know, now there's, you know, not just one app, there's three apps and, you know, watching watching that but like not being the CEO, not being the co-founder, but being like, you know, the only person designing the products and we're designing like, you know, half a dozen products It's like I'm super super involved in all of them. So, it it really just like gave me this incredible education. Like I look at that like that job was about two years. Like that was my college. That's really where I learned like why I wanted to do this. Um

[1:00:23] and I just learned how to do it. So, what do you think about the mobile app studio model instead of because you're going all in on bags, I assume, like you're not really doing a mobile app studio. Y what do you think about that approach? Um, it's an amazing approach if your goals are to build like just simple consumer, you know, let's throw things at the wall. Let's find something that works and then go all in on it, right? I think that that's what that's why studios work because you just like I don't know, you start a company, you don't necessarily know if the product's going to succeed. So, if you start a

[1:00:54] studio, it's just like, well, we're going to test five products and see what happens. Gotcha. And hopefully one of them hits. And then in most of those situations, what you should do is then double down on the one that's working and um go all in on it. And go all in on it. Okay. Use the studio to get thing to test ideas, right? And then maybe if you want to continue testing, you can. But um in the in terms of bags, it was just like I didn't want to build a studio because um I knew what I wanted to build and I knew that you know the problem of

[1:01:22] you know hey we're going to build a consumer crypto mobile app where you know not a lot of people are looking in this area like that was a bet that I was willing to take. I didn't know what the product would be when we started. We had like a general idea um but we just knew that we loved the problem and we loved the market. So we were like let's just focus on this. Let's not do anything else. Mhm. And how do you think about selling these things? Because I I kind of pay attention to the social app Twitter space. Seems a little combative, but like Nikita Beer goes like, I'm

[1:01:51] going to do something, scale it for three months, then sell and like work at the company that I sell it to for like two months. Like that's or two years. Like that's his style. Then Blake Anderson who I've had on the podcast is like more of the portfolio of like run it up, keep it, hold it, and then but do multiple like he's done Cali Eis and all these other ones. Then you're like all NGL. You've obviously tried a lot, but then NGL hit. You went all in on it and

[1:02:12] you still have it and it's on autopilot. So, like what's like why do you take this approach? Why haven't you sold NGL? Like what was the actual like decision-m? Um the decision-m really is like I I mean first of all, love Nikita and love Blake. Um extremely intelligent in totally different areas. Um and I I think that like what I've what I wanted to do was I wanted to focus on like a big bet which is why I decided to to do bags. Um and NGL is, you know, it's on autopilot, right? like my my co-founders make sure that it stays operational and we don't go down and it just like you

[1:02:44] know they we continue to optimize it. Um it just that's just where the the business is right now. You know I think we're about two and a half years in to generating significant revenue. Um I don't know what the future holds but like I'm open to anything. Like I still just cash flows so like why sell out of the and it's passive. It's a super

[1:03:01] comfortable business. It does very well. um extremely grateful and yeah literally like wherever the trajectory ends up like I'm Are these like and social apps like seem to have like a moment in time and they have like a really big boom like are they sticky like is it something that's like people are continuing to use over and over or is it like kind of like a it's like a fad I don't want to say in a negative way but like in the high school that adopts it they use it for like three months what's the like life cycle of it so what we've actually been really impressed about is

[1:03:28] that like it it has never slowed down like it you the the app does 100 million downloads a year essentially um with no marketing and I it moves through friend graphs and what we find is that you know many of our downloads um you know will we'll notice that it's like people that previously used the app maybe they deleted it they got a new phone whatever it was and then they came back because the viral loop is still going right it's just it's still looping around so even if you churn you'll probably get pushed back in because your friend will post it and they'll be like, "Ah [ __ ] I want to

[1:04:04] do a question again." Oh man. Like, okay, this app again, let me go get it. Right. Like that's it's like a seasonal kind of idea. Yeah, that that happens. I mean, but we have very very strong um active users that are super super consistent and you know, we have like great cohorts that have retained super well. Um but it's just like the the the product itself is more about people sharing than it is about people staying on the app. Gotcha. So, have you ever So, like I'm sure like app Have you What is Applovven? I've never understood what that is. Maybe you're a good person to

[1:04:34] ask this for. Like, have you tried advertising? I've So, I This is the thing with advertising. I've actually never really done paid. So, I I wouldn't be the expert for that. Interesting. But, like I'm open to paid. I think that I'm more open to paid for an app like Bags than an app like people are on it. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Right. That's Did has Instagram ever reached out to you? Like is there a certain level of like you guys have 250 million downloads where they're like we'd love to showcase you or anything or like is it like straight radio silence? No. No reach out from them. Um you think they know how

[1:05:05] like for sure? Yeah, I think they do. Have they built I mean that's the Facebook style. See what other people build and then copy it. Have they built like a They haven't just because anonymous is is tricky and it goes probably goes against their entire ethos of connect everybody. Yeah. Yeah. So it works just because you know we increase the usage of the link sticker significantly for a cohort of users. Um

[1:05:27] and you know we have great moderation. Um and like we you know run everything through AI moderation. So it's like we filter for bullying, we filter for harassment, we filter for hate speech, like all that stuff. Um so yeah, we we've haven't had any anything from them. Um obviously huge fan of Meta and

[1:05:42] you know Zuckerberg of course. Um same. Yeah, cool guy. Very cool guy. He's he's uh and he's making good decisions recently. So he is he is yeah I'm impressed. All right. So then what are every software that you use every tool you could like even like ser servers everything of like to launch an app? Okay. So yeah um Figma obviously you need you need um app store connect which is just like the Apple thing. You need test flight which is also from Apple. Um you need either Firebase or AWS. Um, you know, depends on what you want to build it on top of. Um, and then you'll need

[1:06:18] some kind of coding environment, maybe an AI coding environment like cursor. Um, you'll want Xcode as well. Um, trying to think anything else. I mean, if you're if you're going to if you're going to do anything with like uh data and tracking data, you're going to want like a mix panel or an amplitude, something of that nature. Um, and that's about it. I may be missing some, but like that's like most of the stack. And what language is is what's Swift is that? That's like Apple's native language, which is great because it's like you can access like every bit of the iPhone and it's super buttery and

[1:06:52] smooth and like the animations are the best on Swift. Is that what you guys use? Um for NGL, it's built on Swift and then um with bags it's React Native Crossplatform. Okay, cool. So, I guess really the last question I have is your perspective on the world is like very unique and you're like a very individual like freeth thinker. Like you're not someone that's going to see what other people are doing and then copy it. And so I'm just very curious how that how you would is there like any books or any person that you've like like learned from that helped you like shift the mindset or like what have you like if

[1:07:24] you had to think of a few sources that helped you get the perspective that you have today, who would they be? What would they be? You know, as a kid, I was um absolutely obsessed with Steve Jobs when I was like six, seven years old. I remember when he introduced the iPhone. I watched the keynote and I had the original iPhone when I was like eight years old. Um and uh I I was obsessed with him and just his philosophy on just building like really good product and

[1:07:49] like just being a product type person. Um I love Brian Chesy of Airbnb as well. Really good podcast on uh Stanford Blitzcaling. That's really good. Really good. Everyone should check that out for sure. Um he's a design CEO. So he's like really product focused guy. Cares so much about the product. Um and Evan Spiegel too. He's another like major just like design CEO. Cares about product, cares about experience. Those were like my like entrepreneurship people that I looked at of just like, you know, I looked at myself as okay,

[1:08:17] I'm more of a designer than an engineer. You know, if I have to build a website, I can because that's where I started when I was younger, but like I'm a more of a design guy. So, I looked at like who are the CEOs that like have that skill set and those are just a few of them. Um, and then like books. I mean, I've read lots of books. I've read books that are, you know, lots of business books. I've read lots of like, you know, mindfulness and meditation books and, you know, things about, you know, a lot of spirituality. Um, a lot of like ancient philosophy, Egyptian mystery

[1:08:45] school type things. Like I I I like I like things that are just um I like information that is unique and that is not something that everyone else just automatically knows. I like to seek things out and be like more curious. 100%. What would be a book in each category? Reality trans surfing is

[1:09:03] probably one of the most impactful. That's a great one. Probably the most impactful that like actually changed my life three years ago. So that's great. For spirituality for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Um any motiv like one book for motivation or business? You know what a book actually I do love? I do love the uh the Elon Musk biography. Biography. Yeah. Yeah. I love that one. Um because it's just like you just get to understand the man and you get to understand just like the process that he goes through. Um I love that one for business just like also teaching just like the level of tenacity that you

[1:09:33] need. And um trying to think what else I mean I do I've read so many books but reality transerving is amazing. I say for spirituality I would definitely read the Elon Musk book for like just business type stuff. Um, and like you know the secret for you know meditation, mindfulness, manifestation like I think that's that's important. Understand the law of attraction and the law of assumption and just like how you can like use your mind to project the reality you want. Um, that's super important I think especially when you're an entrepreneur because it's like literally what you're doing is like you're having to create a reality and

[1:10:05] manifest it enough. Um, so yeah, that's what I would read if I was starting out. Yeah. You have to see something that doesn't exist and believe it'll happen like exactly or else you won't do the and battle all the self-doubt along the way and all the issues you have to deal with and the people everything about it. Everything. Well, dude, you're probably one of the most talented entrepreneurs I've ever met and I am very grateful that we came. This is a long time coming. Uh you've been popping off some fire tweets lately. Thank you. Where can people find you? Uh Hunter J. Isacson on

[1:10:30] Instagram, on Twitter, everywhere. Cool. Yeah, I'll link everything in the description below. Dude, appreciate you. Thank you, man. This was awesome.

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