All about Network Effects

Network Effects are the foundation of many great Silicon Valley technology companies/ You need users to make a product work – network effects are the results of positively connecting people through technology which organically makes that technology better.

Network effects are about adding value and defensibility to your product. A network effect is when every customer of your product adds incremental value to all the other customers of your product so that it becomes difficult for customers to find any alternative product which gives them as much value.

Network effects are defined as when the value of a company’s product or service increases as usage increases.That means the more users you have, the happier they are, and the cheaper it is to acquire new ones, which means your growth accelerates. Accelerating growth means exponential growth. You want to invest in and work at businesses that grow ex... See more

However, it’s also true that a lot of network-based utility only is realized at some level of scale. (As per NFX: “The simplified definition of network effects is that they occur when a company’s product or service becomes more valuable as usage increases.)

This is where the classical definition of a “network effect” is wrong. I redefine it so that it’s not one singular effect, but rather, three distinct, underlying forces: the Acquisition Effect, which lets products tap into the network to drive low-cost, highly efficient user acquisition via viral growth; the Engagement Effect, which increases inter

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