Building a B2C app & community with 20M registered users | Tobias Dickmeis (Tandem)

Product with Panash

#14: Tobias Dickmeis, CPO and co-founder at Tandem, sits down with Axel to talk about the journey of building Tandem, a language exchange app with over 20 million registered users.

In this episode, we talk about Founder-Product fit, the challenges of acquisition and network effects in the context of a B2C app. We also touch on the tenets of community building and experimentation opportunities with a large user base.

Where to find Tobias

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dickmeis/

Where to find Axel

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/axelsooriah/

About Panash

We provide training and coaching programs to help product professionals unlock their true potential and become high performers.

You can learn more about our programs here: https://www.panash.io/

Our blog contains articles and free resources on key topics for product managers and leaders.

Check it out here: https://collection.panash.io/

Referenced in this episode

• Tandem language learning: https://www.tandem.net/
• Silicon Valley Product Group: https://www.svpg.com/
• Reforge blog: https://www.reforge.com/blog
• Polyglot conference: https://polyglotconference.com/
• Stratechery by Ben Thompson: https://stratechery.com/
• Brighteye VC: https://www.brighteyevc.com/content

Show notes and highlights

(01:27) Tobias' background

(02:28) Tandem's origin story

(05:26) Building a 20M strong community

(06:47) Nailing paid marketing is not easy

(07:30) Founder-Product Fit

(09:22) The flipping moment for Tandem

(12:07) Network effects and growth

(13:17) How does Tandem make money

(14:04) Language learning insights from Tandem

(16:59) Tandem's biggest product challenge

(19:15) How Tandem is planning to address this challenge

(21:17) How to build for a diverse group of users globally

(23:09) Leveraging user base for experimentation

(26:38) How is Tandem organised internally

(27:30) Tobias' Treasure Chest

Mentioned in this episode:

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