Come for the Tool, Stay for the Network

Products like eBay, OpenTable, Uber, and Airbnb are examples of marketplace networks, comprising buyers and sellers. Dropbox, Slack, and Google Suite are workplace collaboration products built from the network of your teammates and coworkers. Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter are networks of content creators and consumers (and adverti

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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

This entrenchment effect provides a realistic business case for bespoke social networks. Running a bespoke social network means you’re basically in the same business as Slack, but for a specific focused community and with tailored features. This is a great business to be in for the same reasons Slack is: low customer acquisition costs and long life... See more

After all, one of the hardest lessons we learned from that period: It wasn’t enough to build the app, you needed to also grow a critical mass of users. Without the right users there at the beginning, a user-generated content product would inherently be too shallow on content. Low engagement would lead to more low engagement.