What separates a startup that struggles for attention from one that attracts millions of users? In this episode of Build It to Billions, Brett Swarts sits down with entrepreneur, bestselling author, and growth strategist Colin Hodge to explore the psychology, marketing strategies, and unconventional thinking behind extraordinary startup growth.
Drawing from more than 17 years in the industry and experience with businesses reaching over 100 million users, Colin shares lessons from co-founding and scaling Bang with Friends, building DOWN into a leading dating app, and driving growth for major technology platforms. Together, Brett and Colin unpack how understanding consumer psychology, creating products people genuinely want, and challenging traditional marketing assumptions can help entrepreneurs accelerate growth and build companies that stand out in crowded markets.
Episode Highlights Here:
Intro
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Brett
Welcome to the Build it to Billions podcast, where we guide successful entrepreneurs and investors on their journey from millions to billions. We believe the key to scaling and compounding your wealth in life starts every single day with the mindset and practice of stewardship over ownership and applying billionaire biblical principles. Our ultimate goal is help you scale and compound your wealth in life, so you can give more all the way to help MVPs. My name is Brett Swarts. Each and every episode, we’re joined by the world’s top entrepreneurs, millionaires, or billionaires, and they share their secrets, wisdom, and insights with us, so we can all level up and make a bigger impact. I’m excited about our next guest. He’s originally from Pennsylvania. He’s calling from another country, which he’ll talk about here in a minute. And he’s a startup founder and author who hassled companies and growth teams responsible for over 100 million users. He currently is co-owner of Down of Down, a top 10 dating app in the U.S. with millions in annual revenue, built on the growth principles and lessons shared in his book, talking about outrageous startup growth, which we’ll be talking about as well. He achieved a successful exit from Down, then later reacquired it and 17 Live and the top live streaming video company in Asia, and so much more. We’re talking about outrageous startup growth with Mr. Colin Hodge. Colin, how are we doing today?
Colin
I’m doing so well. Thanks for having me, Brett.
Brett
Excellent. And for listeners getting to know you for the first time, would you give us just a little more about your story and your current focus?
Colin
Absolutely, yeah. As you said, I’m from Pennsylvania. I’m from a small town. Grew up with, you know, in a town with more cows than people. And as I was there, I just started to get that entrepreneurial itch. I wanted to be my own boss. I wanted to create new stuff. And when I did, eventually, I stumbled across something that worked. It took a lot of experiments and failures, and when I started to get that success, I learned one of the key ingredients is understanding how people think. You know, it’s one thing we all want to build for ourselves and create something, but how do you actually get into the mindset of your customer? And through that, I also learned the mindset of the founder myself is so quintessential to honing that growth mindset and really teaching myself what are my principles, what do I believe in, and how do Imake this repeatable success instead of just a one-off.
Brett
Interesting. Okay, and so it’s fascinating. So, you grew up in Pennsylvania. At what point did you, you know, know that this is maybe your strength that you could get clear on how people think? Sounds like to me that is your strength, or what would you say is your other strength that you use that you have today? That and how does that? How do you use that to bless others?
Colin
You know, I figured out that one of the biggest things missing these days is empathy. There’ s really a lack of empathy, and I know that the entrepreneurs that I’ve worked with, the
founders that I look up to, they actually really read people very well. They understand their customers well. They understand what motivates their staff, so they can recruit well, and they just create better companies that last longer and are more successful because of it. So, one of my big strengths is trying to hone in on what is my empathy. How can I better connect with the emotions other people have, what they’re going through, and then build better products and services for them, or build a better company for them to work at. So, its empathy, which ties into that greater understanding of what is their psychology and how are they thinking. But to be honest, Brett, I went to school for engineering. I was a computer science nerd. I was coding beginning in my career. I started. I got the dream job at big tech at Microsoft. Paid off a lot of those student loans, and then after that, I finally got the cojones to say, “All right, I got to strikeout on my own again, and I got to start my own business. So, my other hidden talent now, because it’s been over 10 years since I’ve really coded, was programming and being, you know, computer science guy. So, it was a weird journey to get into this psychological expertise. But now that I’m here, I just I love it because there’s this curiosity I have about how the world works, why we make the decisions we do, what drives our behaviors, and once you start to get into this, you realize it’s everywhere around us. It affects the brands we choose. It affects the choices we make, the prices that we you know want to buy something at, don’t want to buy it, why we share things is connected to all of this.
Brett
Excellent. So, with that in mind, let’s dive right into outrageous. Startup growth. So, Colin, maybe that is the first secret what you just explained. But what would you say is the number one secret to a business startup achieving outrageous growth?
Colin
Yeah, I think the most hidden.
Brett
So, if you like this little, short clip of the interview I just did, click over here to watch the full interview, and please don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks so much, everybody.
Watch the episode here:
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About Colin Hodge
Colin Hodge is an entrepreneur, growth strategist, bestselling author, and keynote speaker with more than 17 years of experience building and scaling technology businesses. Throughout his career, he has contributed to products reaching more than 100 million users. He co-founded the dating app Bang with Friends, organically growing it to more than 6 million users before selling it, and later bought the company back, rebranded it as DOWN, and grew it into one of the top dating apps in the U.S.
Colin has also served on the board of a Silicon Valley social media company generating more than $200 million in annual revenue and led data-driven growth initiatives for 17Live, one of Asia’s leading live-streaming platforms. His expertise centers on consumer psychology, disruptive marketing, product development, and organic growth. Today, Colin shares the lessons from his entrepreneurial journey through writing, speaking, and working with startups to help founders build products and marketing strategies that create meaningful, sustainable growth.
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