The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects

It's hard to get around that, but the way you can do it is if you build in utility. And I think that is largely because advertising was a hell of a drug for these companies for so long. That is why all these big internet advertising platforms were slow to become marketplaces, because it would have a temporary negative financial impact. Th... See more

This is why we say “start with the white-hot center” of your network and expand out from there. A dense, highly active network will outperform a larger but less active one every time.