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The Cold Start Problem: Using Network Effects to Scale Your Product – A Review

The Cold Start Problem: Using Network Effects to Scale Your Product – A Review

3 comments

·April 22, 2025
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garrickvanburen

I originally read The Cold Start when I was inside a startup studio with an abundance of marketplace ideas.

This book helped clarify for me that no successful marketplace starts out as a marketplace - simply because you need to start out with ready access to one side (likely the supply side as in the Uber & AirBnB examples) and build demand.

The marketplace/network then emerges strategically as more suppliers are onboarded.

This insight helped quickly focus and filter the marketplace ideas we didn't have any business pursuing.

yodon

Am I right in thinking this is only the second blog post by this author? If so, wow - way to start with excellence.

pluto_modadic

this reminds me - fediverse apps can build a network effect that incentivizes more fediverse apps to be activitypub compatible: https://www.augment.ink/bridges-the-last-network-effect/