First, does the product have a network? Does it connect people with each other, whether for commerce, collaboration, communication, or something else at the core of the experience? And second, does the ability to attract new users, or to become stickier, or to monetize, become even stronger as its network grows larger?

Before we dive in, let’s revisit the cold start problem — a well-known challenge for products with network effects (or “networks”), including Snapchat or Airbnb. On these products, the addition of a user makes the product more useful for all users. But on day 0, they have no users and, therefore, no utility to offer new users. This forces them to... See more

Every company faces some version of the “cold start problem”: How do you get started from nothing? How do you acquire customers? How do you create network effects — where your product or service becomes more valuable to its users as more people use it — that create incentives for even more customers to sign up?