[quote style=”boxed”]A drop-dead simple way to schedule meetings that doesn’t require all the usual back and forth. Let me know if you have a solution, that’s even more simple than what’s out there and maybe I’ll introduce you to some angel investors![/quote]
Greg Tseng co-founded Tagged in October 2004 and has served as Chief Executive Officer since its inception. He has been a driving force in creating Tagged with his partner, co-founder and long-time friend, Johann Schleier-Smith. Tagged enables anyone to meet and socialize with new people. With over 100 million members in 220 countries, Tagged has established the category of social discovery. Greg went to Harvard College and pursued a Ph.D. in Physics at Stanford before leaving to launch Tagged.
What are you working on right now?
Just keeping our great momentum going: sharing our story with reporters and bloggers like yourself; recruiting great new employees and maintaining our strong culture; and of course building new products. For example, we recently launched Tagged for Android and iOS as well as our mobile web site and usage has skyrocketed. Depending on the day, Tagged is ranked the #2 or #3 Social app in the Android Marketplace, right up there with Facebook and Twitter. I’m very excited to continue building on this momentum.
3 trends that excite you?
Smartphone adoption is growing faster than anyone could have predicted. We’re seeing this across the industry but the Tagged app usage especially continues to blow us away in its growth and engagement.
Social Gaming presents an incredible opportunity to enable people to meet and socialize with each other online. We’re excited to be one of the leading platforms for social gaming.
Geo-location in devices is an important trend for social discovery and will become the norm in two years. The ability for apps to give a personalized experience when you are in different cities is very powerful.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Through creativity and hard work. I especially love the creative process of product development, where an idea becomes a sketch and then a design and then a prototype and finally a live product used by millions of people.
What is one mistake you’ve made, and what did you learn from it?
Not responding fast enough in a PR crisis. If you don’t tell your own story, then others will make one up for you.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
A drop-dead simple way to schedule meetings that doesn’t require all the usual back and forth. Let me know if you have a solution, that’s even more simple than what’s out there and maybe I’ll introduce you to some angel investors!
What do you read every day? Why?
TechCrunch, Mashable, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and a bunch of other news publications. I like to keep up on the news, analysis and trends.
What does your typical day look like?
Walk into our office and see the incredible team we’ve built and then jump right into meetings, tasks, and emails all day. No two days are the same but currently I’m focused on press, team building, and product development. I usually work out around lunch time and I’ll often go to industry events in the evenings as well.
What is your favorite gadget, app or piece of software that helps you every day?
It’s got to be my iPhone. I use it constantly throughout the day. Get a car on Uber, check email, plan my day, make a lunch reservation, read the news, take notes, listen to music, and of course check out Tagged. I’m still amazed at all the things you can do on a single device.
What inspires you?
I’m inspired by Tagged’s millions of users who use to site to meet and socialize with each other every day. We currently enable about 100 million new friend connections every month and that inspires me to keep building Tagged up to 1 billion per month and beyond.
Connect
Tagged on Twitter – !/tagged
Greg Tseng on Twitter – !/gregtseng
[box size=”small” border=”full”]This interview was brought to you by Rohit Jain who works in business development. You can follow Rohit via his blog and on Twitter. [/box]
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.