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Suchit Dash: Scaling Dubsmash to 43M Users, Battling TikTok & Joining Reddit | E1060

Suchit Dash is the VP of Core Product Experience at Reddit, responsible for the surfaces that millions of users interact with daily. Prior to Reddit, Suchit was a cofounder at Dubsmash, a short video platform that was used by millions globally and acquired by Reddit in December 2020. In just 10 days, Suchit scaled the product to an immense 43M users, and gained fans such as Neymar and Jimmy Fallon. Suchit previously held roles at Soundcloud and PayPal. ----------------------------------------- Timestamps: (00:32) Early Career and Journey: From PayPal to Dubsmash (09:56) Dubsmash's Evolution: User Dynamics, Challenges, and Shifts (19:19) Overcoming Business Struggles and Maintaining Optimism (25:42) Adapting to Market Changes: Dance Challenges and Business Reiterations (34:10) Competitive Landscape: TikTok and Business Strategy Decisions (46:22) Business Transitions: Reddit Acquisition, Investor Relations, and Lessons Learned (57:06) Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------- In Today's Episode with Suchit Dash We Discuss: The Founding of Dubsmash & V1: How did the founding of Dubsmash come to be? Suchit scaled V1 of the product to 43M users in 10 days, what was the secret? What worked? What were the first signs that all was not right? How did the team respond to the realization that their retention numbers were terrible? What are Suchit's biggest lessons and pieces of advice from this massive V1 and launch? Data: Retention, Cohorts and The Smiley Face: What specific data did Suchit and the team really use to understand their level of product market fit? What level of retention were they looking for? What is average, good, and great in terms of retention in consumer social? What is really important for founders to try and observe and analyze in net new user cohorts? When and why did the team start to see the hailed smiley face of consumer returning to the app? Battling TikTok: Despite the resurgence, TikTok was roaring, what did TikTok do so well to take the market? How did TikTok leverage both FB and Snap's ad platform to acquire so many users so fast? What did TikTok not do well? What could they have done better? How did TikTok pay and incentivize the creator community? What are some of Suchit's biggest lessons and advice for founders battling a better-funded incumbent? The Decision to Sell: Being Acquired by Reddit: Ultimately, why did Suchit decide to sell the company to Reddit? Why did the first two acquisition attempts fail? What are 1-2 of the biggest pieces of advice Suchit has for founders debating whether it is right to sell their company? What do all founders being acquired need to remember? With the benefit of hindsight, if Suchit could do the acquisition process again, what would he do differently? ----------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZ... Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Suchit Dash on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Suchit Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vc_reels Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/con... ---------------------------------------- #SuchitDash #Reddit #dubsmash #HarryStebbings #20vc #sales

Suchit DashguestHarry Stebbingshost
Sep 12, 202359mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Dubsmash’s Rise, Reinvention, And Reddit Exit In TikTok’s Shadow

  1. Suchit Dash recounts his journey from early product management at PayPal to co-founding and scaling Dubsmash, a viral lip-sync app that hit 10 million users in 43 days but initially lacked real product‑market fit. He explains how deep user understanding, especially of creator motivations, led Dubsmash to pivot from a party‑trick lip-sync tool into a dance‑challenge community with dramatically better retention. The conversation covers painful retention struggles, morale during competitive pressure from TikTok, hard calls like downsizing and relocating the company, and the emotional realities of running an M&A process. Dash also shares frameworks for consumer product design, creator ecosystems, social graph evolution, and what he’s learned leading video and product at Reddit.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Product insight starts with human motivations, not features or tools.

Dash treats consumer product work like anthropology: observe real behavior, infer underlying motivations (e.g., creators want community, clout, and cash), and then design products that help users reach their desired identity or outcome, not just smoother onboarding or more tooling.

Viral growth is not the same as product‑market fit.

Dubsmash hit massive download numbers via a clever, lightweight creation-only app and watermarked videos shared across messaging apps, but retained only ~5% of users at 30 days, making it more of a party trick than a daily habit; true PMF only appeared later when retention curves and ‘smile’ patterns improved.

Be intellectually honest about when something isn’t working.

Despite celebrity usage and press, the founders did not believe their own hype; they watched retention and usage patterns, acknowledged they didn’t yet have a durable business, and made drastic decisions like shrinking from 40 to 4 employees and relocating to New York to reset.

Look for small, high‑retention edge use cases and build around them.

The pivotal Dubsmash insight came from a single Instagram video of a teen using the app for dance challenges, not lip-sync; following that rabbit hole to a tiny but extremely retentive community led them to rebuild Dubsmash as a dance‑challenge platform and materially improve D30 and long‑term retention.

Consumer social platforms must carefully structure creator ecosystems.

Dash cautions that overtly favoring top creators (e.g., leaderboards, ported follow graphs) can discourage newcomers; healthy platforms balance recognition for stars with democratic discovery so new creators feel they have a real shot at growth.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Good products make it to your home screen. Great products make it into your mind.

— Suchit Dash

We didn’t nail the user motivation. We didn’t get users to shift their time to us daily.

— Suchit Dash

Overnight successes are never really overnight successes. There were three failed applications before Dubsmash.

— Suchit Dash

On your worst day, you must be your best self.

— Suchit Dash, citing Admiral McRaven

Reddit is an anonymous network… the aggregation of the community is more trustworthy than what your friends think.

— Suchit Dash

Early career in product management and love of productDubsmash’s viral growth, retention struggles, and pivotsUnderstanding creator motivations and designing for themCompeting with TikTok and dynamics of paid user acquisitionDeciding to sell, running M&A processes, and joining RedditFrameworks for product‑market fit, retention, and social graphsReddit’s community-driven model, video strategy, and conversation-first design

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