A former executive from Tinder is joining the board of a fast growing company that's trying to teach millennial 'noobies' how to invest
- Brian Norgard, the former head of product at dating app Tinder, joined the board of directors of StockTwits, a Twitter-like site for people interested in talking about finance and stocks.
- Norgard will help StockTwits expand into new areas of financial technology and media.
- He announced his departure from Tinder in November.
A former executive at dating app Tinder is joining the board of directors of a fast-growing financial technology company.
Brian Norgard has joined the board of StockTwits, a Twitter-like site where investors exchange ideas on finance and stocks, and will help the company expand into new areas of media and fin-tech, according to an announcement on Friday.
Norgard told Business Insider that with many years of experience developing consumer technology for the popular dating app, he wanted to help StockTwits grow a robust social community.
"My particular expertise is in consumer technology, and I am always looking at ways to make it more useful and simplify user experience," he said. "And fin-tech is an incredible white space for my particular skills because of all the dimensionality to it... So what's really interesting to me is this opportunity to help them craft products and continue to expanding that core value proposition, which on StockTwits is that you don't have to invest alone."
"The trading of an equity is maybe different from looking for a date, but the pattern of underlying mechanisms to keep the customers interested and give them access to information are not all that different," he added.
Norgard joined Tinder in 2014 after the company acquired his messaging startup Tappy. He started as the head of revenue and was promoted to chief product officer in 2016. During his over four-year stint at Tinder, Norgard has spearheaded the launches of several prominent features - including Super Like, Boost, and Top Picks.
Norgard left Tinder in November, around two months after a group of founders and current executives at Tinder filed lawsuits against its parent companies, Match Group Inc. and InterActiveCorp. The plaintiffs in the case alleged that IAC falsely estimated the company's valuation and sought at least $2 billion.
Norgard has also invested in Coinmine, a Los Angeles-based startup that has developed a sleek mining device allowing the masses to mine cryptocurrencies at home. He's also invested in Secfi, a San Francisco startup providing loans for option exercise and holders of private company stock.