Tinder

Every app needs one of the seven deadly sins

Balaji relays Michael Moritz's framework that every breakout consumer app maps to a deadly sin: Tinder is lust, Twitter is wrath, Google is sloth, DoorDash is gluttony. The lesson: deliver a visceral, instantly explainable benefit ('a newsletter that pays you').

“you know, Moritz talks about this half-jokingly as, you know, every app needs one of the seven deadly sins, you know, like lust, greed, sloth, gluttony, wrath, pride, uh, I forget the other ones, right? Um, but it's things close, right? Tinder is lust, right? And Twitter is wrath.”

Steal thisHook users with one visceral, instantly explainable benefit (a deadly sin), not a long-term abstract promise.

The fastest path to the Seven Deadly Sins spreads fastest

Shaan argues products spread when they tap into what people want with maximum simplicity: Tinder works because a thumb-flick might get you a hookup. His heuristic: simplicity spreads, and the fastest path to the seven deadly sins spreads the fastest.

“Simplicity spreads. And, uh, like, the fastest path to the Seven Deadly Sins is what spreads the fastest.”

Tinder's frat-and-sorority campus launch playbook

Shaan recounts Tinder's growth story: a rep would pitch a whole sorority to download the app, walk them across to a fraternity to do the same so matches lit up instantly, then gate a party that night behind showing Tinder on your phone.

“they launched on college campuses and they would send somebody, I think Whitney, in, and she would go talk at a sorority or fraternity and be like, hey everybody in the room, download this app right now. They would get the whole sorority on, walk across the street to the fraternity, have them download it, and be like, hey look, all these matches are on. And then they would throw a party that night and you have to show Tinder on your phone in order to get it.”

Steal thisSeed a two-sided network in tight physical clusters so both sides see instant activity, then gate an event on usage.

Hot or Not was Tinder in 2000, when posting a photo online was taboo

Hot or Not let people submit a photo and be rated 1-10 by strangers, a decade before Tinder. Hong notes the radical part wasn't the rating but posting a photo at all, since at the time photos lived only behind password-protected Shutterfly pages.

“And this was kind of in the day when everyone was scared to post their photo online. Like if you posted your photo online, it was behind a password-protected page that, you know, was for Shutterfly or Ophoto back in the day. So the concept of posting a photo for other people to see that you didn't have full control over who could see it was completely foreign at the time.”

Double opt-in dating: no rejection in a liquid marketplace

Hot or Not invented double opt-in dating (the model Tinder later used): a match only happens when both people say yes. Hong argues a highly liquid marketplace removes rejection entirely because you don't even remember everyone you said yes to, and it protected women from being flooded by paid messages on sites like Match.com.

“So we were the first ones to do like the concept of what you would call double opt-in dating. Like if you, if you say you're interested in someone, then they can say they're interested in you too. You know, like what Tinder is today.”