Gas App's $7M Revenue
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A story about how Nikita Bier sold his second viral teen app to Discord after previously selling a similar app to Facebook.
"He built an app called tbh that was basically a quiz app for teenagers. You could go on and answer questions about people in your school like 'who's the most cute boy' or 'who's most likely to be famous?' It would text them saying 'somebody said you're cute, download my app.'
It immediately went viral and Facebook bought it - people said $100M but it was more like $30-40M. The app got shut down within a year because there was no retention. He sat at Facebook for 4 years vesting his entire earnout.
Then he leaves Facebook and does the exact same thing again - creates another teen app for compliments. He told us in advance, 'I'm gonna make an app that makes $10M in 3 months.' We laughed it off thinking 'is that even possible?' But he pretty much did it - Gas App made $7M in gross sales in about 3 months.
He created this mystique around himself, hosting parties at his home in LA, posting cryptic tweets about viral growth, and getting all these 'legends' to follow him. He built this aura of sophistication around knowing how to build viral apps. Then Discord acquired the app."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.