In 2017, Nikita Bier created tbh, a viral teen app and then sold the viral app to Facebook. The app then got shutdown by Facebook due to low usage. Who could have seen that coming 😱
He then worked at Facebook to get his payout from Facebook and left after fulfilling the minimum criteria to get paid.
He then went out to create Gas in 2022 where he basically relaunched tbh.
It’s an app for teens to ‘compliment’ each other that was #1 on the US App Store for weeks. The way it works is genius. You can anonymously participate in polls on people and then the person has to pay a $6.99 subscription to see who voted for them in the polls. They say its for ‘compliments’ and ‘to encourage a positive environment amongst America’s youth’ but we all know the real reason people are paying. It’s called teenagers wanting to see who has a crush on them.
Shaan Puri from the My First Million podcast who is friends with him said that Nikita Bier told them that he was going to make an app that would make him $10 million dollars in 3 months. He called his shot and then did it.
Gas did like $7 million in sales in 3 months and Gas ended up being acquired by Discord. There’s no numbers out but it was probably between $10 and 30 million.
In the podcast, Shaan then goes on to talk about how Nikita is the most insufferable person ever in a good way.
He kept being super obnoxious about how successful it was becoming and how much money they were making which isn’t the worst thing in the world. The cool part is that he also shared numbers publicly which is quite uncommon.
Also, he had horrible takes on crypto (which he had to delete in a couple of hours because he was being a hypocrite). He tweeted very pessimistically and attacked crypto for creating nothing of value and exploiting people or something to that extent.
Obviously the replies were all people pointing out that he exploits teenager’s insecurities and attention for a living by creating hyped up viral teen social apps that last for a couple months and doesn’t contribute anything to society. It’s like the founder of a tobacco company criticising McDonalds for causing health issues.
Yeah we get it McDonalds is unhealthy but you aren’t the best spokesperson for companies harming people’s health with their products.
I think we are mutual blocks on at least 2 twitter accounts which is fun.
He may have blocked me on multiple Twitter accounts but it’s still pretty cool to see someone good at their craft do something and achieve success rapidly.
He also did this all in public.
You can follow his tweets (if you aren’t blocked) and see how fast Gas was growing, his marketing campaign, revenue numbers, technical issues they faced and more.
Other than that, he’s THE GUY when it comes to building a viral american highschool teen social media see who your crush is app that exits to a big tech company in its first couple months for mid 8 figs.
pretty niche and cool.
