As part of its 2016 roundup, TechCrunch ran a feature on how to grow apps, collecting insights from the “app growth hall of fame”.
Interviewees included former Myspace CEO Mike Jones, Greylock partner Josh Elman and Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen.
Mateen was absolutely key to Tinder’s growth in its early stages, helping a simple swiping app evolve from a college hit into a global phenomenon.
In his interview, Mateen speaks about organically building Tinder’s popularity on campuses, and how they turned college students into their “greatest evangelists”.
As he says: “The way that I like to start any network is to go after the hardest users to get first; users that seem like they almost don’t have a need for the product.
‘These can either be your worst critics or your greatest evangelists. For us, that was college students.”
The co-founder also talks about the clever guerrilla marketing tricks Tinder played and how they used different college networks to their advantage to help stoke the app’s virality.
Read the interview here.