The rules of building a social product are changing. It’s important to understand this shift to build social products that can effectively gain traction on the internet today.The connection-first model is no longer as effective as it used to be. As the social web grows, and a larger number of social products compete for our attention, we are seeing... See more

Traditionally, startups have solved this problem by racing to connect users with each other, essentially providing them the pipes to interact with each other. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have grown big with this connection-first model.

The proverbial chicken and egg problem of building a new social product is well understood among tech startups, and it’s been commonplace to follow two contrasting mechanisms for getting traction.

The new playbook for creating social products is essentially the following:Have a vision for creating the network but do not start executing on network creationEnable a single-user tool that creates content that is core to social interactionsShare this content on external networks (social networks, email, blogosphere)Capture interactions around the... See more

The product should deliver greater value when users share their content with their friends. The product builds out the network at the backend as more content is shared. Hence, the social network gets created, effectively solving the chicken and egg problem.

Today’s social startups don’t start off as networks. They start off as standalone apps. These products enable users to create a corpus of content first. They then connect the users with each other as a consequence of sharing that content.

However, a new breed of networks is gaining ground with the content-first model. They provide users with tools to create a corpus of content, and then enable conversations around that content. Behance, Pinterest, Instagram, Dribble, Scoop.It have all gained traction by building a corpus of content before building a social network.

Startups often fail to appreciate the gap between technology and value proposition. For products like Evernote, technology serves the entire value proposition. However, for social products, the value proposition is a combination of technology and the content that users create on top of it. YouTube’s value lies in its hosting and streaming capabilit... See more

The secret to creating a social product that demonstrates immediate value is to enable content before creating the network.