Most founders copy what’s already working. Cliff Lerner bets on being different. That’s how Cliff grew AreYouInterested? to 120 million users, took the first social media company public, launched the world’s first dating and swiping app, and earned a seat on the board of Bumble’s parent company. Explosive Growth is Cliff’s playbook for finding the edge everyone else misses.
Cliff and Darrell Lerner at the Nasdaq MarketSite, 2011.Co-founders Cliff and Darrell Lerner, New York City.Cliff and Darrell Lerner with AreYouInterested?, the dating app that grew Snap Interactive.
Cliff Lerner is a founder, investor, author, and board member who usually has five or more companies in flight across consumer social, dating, and fintech. Same job as always: build something people want, then make it spread.
Previously, Cliff co-founded and served as CEO and chairman of publicly traded Snap Interactive, which merged with Paltalk in 2016. Under his leadership, the company launched the world’s first dating and swiping app and ranked 36th on Deloitte’s 2012 Technology Fast 500 of North America’s fastest-growing tech companies, with revenue up 4,412% from 2007 to 2011.
Cliff was a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and served on the board of Bumble Inc., formerly MagicLabs, the parent company of Bumble and Badoo, which was acquired by Blackstone for $3 billion in 2019.
He is the author of Explosive Growth. Half memoir, half playbook: how a struggling public company made one big product bet, hit 100,000 new users per day, and then faced the hard part: staying on top. The book is full of what worked, what failed, and what he would do differently.
Cliff began his career as an equity analyst at Lehman Brothers and holds a BS in Applied Economics and Business Management from Cornell University.
Outside of work, Cliff is an active angel investor who loves startups, travel, basketball, great steak, and karaoke. A lifelong Knicks and Nets fan who still plays regularly, he shoots over 45 percent from three.
His work, sometimes credited to Clifford Lerner, has been featured in CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Business Insider, Bloomberg, Fortune TV, Yahoo Finance, and more.
A founder playbook for finding useful Google searches, choosing pages or tools, earning relevant links, and measuring organic visits and product actions.
Measure a marketing channel from qualified interest through acquired customers, acquisition cost and payback, then check attribution before changing spend.
Choose a first startup marketing channel by tracing how buyers seek help, comparing routes you can reach, and identifying the product proof each route needs.
A founder playbook for testing buyer questions in AI search, improving useful answers, contributing to relevant outside pages and checking for visits.
4 sources · Read the playbook →
For press & podcast hosts
The essentials, in one place
Cliff Lerner is an entrepreneur, investor, author, and board member. Cliff co-founded Snap Interactive, the first social media company to go public, and grew AreYouInterested?, the world’s first dating and swiping app, to 120 million users and $100M+ in revenue. Cliff also wrote Explosive Growth, a startup playbook published in six countries.
Business Insider · July 2011
Author Hour · 2017
Multimodal · 2024
The New York Times · February 20, 2008
Bloomberg · December 23, 2010
TechCrunch · January 14, 2011
The Next Web · September 15, 2011
International Business Times · December 14, 2011
Forbes · June 19, 2013
Business Insider · January 18, 2012
Seeking Alpha · February 1, 2012
PR Newswire · May 22, 2012
Fortune · December 11, 2014
The Wall Street Journal · October 2, 2015
BuzzFeed News · December 23, 2015
