Jeff Morris Jr.: Building a flexible mindset
My guest today is Jeff Morris Jr., the Director of Revenue at Tinder. We begin this episode talking about the future of education. Jeff recently completed an MBA at UCLA and wrote his thesis on the future of Lambda School, the San Francisco based education startup. We talked about the transition from marketing funnels to marketing loops and how Tinder is growing its average revenue per user. We also explore Hollywood's transition from movies to television, and the letter Jeff received from legendary UCLA college basketball coach John Wooden. We also explore some career strategies for sparking serendipity. I hope you enjoy our conversation. SUBSCRIBE TO MY “MONDAY MUSINGS” NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UP WITH THE PODCAST. Where to find Jeff online: Twitter Website Tinder Other links: Ryan Holdaway Lambda School K-factor by Andrew Chen Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari RigUp Brian Nogard Show Notes: 1:18 What Jeff learned from working with Lambda school on their Outcomes team, why the incentive structure for traditional colleges is broken, and why Jeff got an MBA despite believing in the future of education looking like Lambda school? 7:43 How Jeff had to scale himself up by becoming a lot more quantitative as the Director of Revenue at Twitter, how marketing at startups has changed from funnels to loops, and the cultural power of the Tinder swipe. 12:54 How average revenue per use has come up at Tinder over the last two years, how to build a successful social product that is low in the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and how Tinder balances perceived coolness and utility. 18:11 The historic geographical limitations of dating, the evergreen trends in dating, and what has Jeff learned about compatibility between people through his time at Tinder 23:17 How Jeff thinks about inequality in the Tinder ecosystem, how movies and TV have set up a false idea of how people meet, and what Jeff learned about romance from film school. 30:08 The switch from Hollywood to TV for film school graduates, why TV is uniquely suited to the subscription model, and why David thinks that exporting cool is LA’s core competency 44:34 Retraining in the Lambda school era, high growth jobs that are easy to retrain for, and dynamics of proving competence and expertise 52:26 Why Jeff sent a letter to John Wooden and other celebrities, what he learned about outbound emails, and how to find the ‘underpriced assets’ when it comes to talent 1:00:55 How Jeff got a job at Zaarly ahead of hundreds of other candidates, how that experience expanded his worldview, and what you can do to set yourself apart in the job search process 1:04:47 David and Jeff give the listeners a challenge, what Jeff learned from Brian Norgard about products, and how Jeff thinks about disruption 1:17:17 The verticalization of LinkedIn and other incumbents, and why Jeff thinks being on Twitter is the reason for his high growth career SUBSCRIBE TO MY “MONDAY MUSINGS” NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UP WITH THE PODCAST.