The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effect
- 2026-02-04 (modified: 2026-02-07)
- 저자: Andrew Chen
네트워크 효과에 대해 생각할 수 있는 새로운 방법으로 Cold Start Theory를 제안하는 책. 단순히 현상을 설명하는 게 아니라 네트워크 효과를 만들어내고 각 단계에서 뭘 해야하는지 설명하고자 함.
Introduction
The Cold Start Problem:
The first phase of the core framework, naturally, is called the Cold Start Problem, which every product faces at its inception, when there are no users. I’m borrowing a term here for something many of us have experienced during freezing temperatures—it’s extra hard to get your car started! In the same way, there’s a Cold Start Problem when a network is first launched. If there aren’t enough users on a social network and no one to interact with, everyone will leave. If a workplace chat product doesn’t have all your colleagues on it, it won’t be adopted at the office. A marketplace without enough buyers and sellers will have products listed for months without being sold. This is the Cold Start Problem, and if it’s not overcome quickly, a new product will die.
Part I. Network Effects
Chapter 1. What’s a network effect, anyway?
In its classic usage, a network effect describes what happens when products get more valuable as more people use them. …
The “network” is defined by people who use the product to interact with each other. …
The “effect” part of the network effect describes how value increases as more people start using the product. …
Given these definitions, how do you tell if a product has a network effect, and, if yes, how strong is it? The questions to ask are simple: 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? … Note that the answers to these questions aren’t binary - generally not yes or no - but rather in shades of gray. …
Larger competitors are often able to copy the product, but find it difficult to capture the network.
Chapter 2. A Brief History
The tech industry still talks about winner-take-all markets and first mover advantages, when in practice, these are myths and in practical terms have been disproven. Look at the reality: there are weak advantages to being first, since the winning startup is usually a later entrant. And the winner usually doesn’t take all, and instead has to battle a number of other networked products over control of different geographies and customer segments. So why the unbridled enthusiasm about network effects? Dig into the literature, and you’ll see that one key theory popularized in the dot-com era presents an unabashed, but highly flawed view of network effects. That theory is Metcalfe’s Law.
- Collapse, if the Allee Threshold isn’t met: 집단이 너무 작으면 무너짐.
- Growing past the Allee Threshold: 특정 규모 이상이 되면 급속도로 팽창.
- Carrying capacity as overpopulation develops: 너무 커지면 제약이 걸리며 팽창이 멈춤.
- Collapsing back past the Allee Threshold: 제대로 된 장치를 마련하지 못하면 다시 역치 아래로 떨어지며 무너짐.
Chapter 3. Cold Start Theory
Chapter 4. Tiny Speck
Chapter 5. Anti-Network Effects
Chapter 6. The Atomic Network
Chapter 7. The Hard Side
Chapter 8. Solve a Hard Problem
Chapter 9. The Killer Product
Chapter 10. Magic Moments
Part III. The Tipping Point
Chapter 11. Tinder
Chapter 12. Invite-Only
Chapter 13. Come for the Tool, Stay for the Network
Chapter 14. Paying Up for Launch
Chapter 15. Flintstoning
Chapter 16. Always Be Hustlin’
Part IV. Escape Velocity
Chapter 17. Dropbox
Chapter 18. The Trio of Forces
Chapter 19. The Engagement Effect
Chapter 20. The Acquisition Effect
Chapter 21. The Economic Effect
Chapter V. The Ceiling
Chapter 22. Twitch
Chapter 23. Rocketship Growth
Chapter 24. Saturation
Chapter 25. The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs
Chapter 26. When the Network Revolts
Chapter 27. Eternal September
Chapter 28. Overcrowding
Part VI. The Moat
Chapter 29. Wimdu versus Airbnb
Wimdu vs. Airbnb 사례를 통해 다음 장들의 주제를 짧게 소개하는 장.
If your product has network effects, your competitors likely have them, too - which can create a dangerous situation.
To introduce the nature of network-based competition, I describe why it’s high-stakes, where the loser can go to zero while the victor taps into its network effects to win the market - this is the “Vicious Cycle, Virtuous Cycle.” But the dynamics of competition are counterintuitive. Networked products exist in a market where all their competitors have network efforts, too, and what you do differs based on if you are David or Goliath. If you’re Goliath, what do you do when a high-momentum new startup is emerging? Or if you’re David, what happens when a giant fast-follows you? One of the core strategies in network-based competition is “Cherry Picking.” An incumbent may look invincible, but its empire is usually made up of many, many smaller networks, some of which are more vulnerable than others - just look at Craigslist and its long line of cherry pickers, including Airbnb. From the standpoint of the biggest player in the market, it’s tempting to take on a fast-growing startup with a Big Bang Launch - maybe a big, glitzy, media-driven announcement like the type that Steve Jobs made famous. Google+ is the quintessential case study, as they pursued Facebook. Yet these end in “Big Bang Failures” when the networks end up diffuse, weak, and prone to collapse. I’ll close this section by unpacking a theme that appears again and again in network-based competition: it’s asymmetric. The smaller player and bigger player use different strategies. And the most intense competition tends to happen as networks compete over the most valuable users of one network to another - this is “Competing over the Hard Side.” The drivers, creators, and organizers that do the hard work in the network are incredibly valuable, and by shifting them over, a new network can rise while an incumbent crumbles. Of course, the bigger player has its own moves, and none more powerful than “Bundling.” By establishing a dominant position in the market, they can take over adjacent ones simply by combining products. I’ll describe the dynamics of the Browser Wars of the 1990s, where Microsoft famously bundled Internet Explorer in its fight against Netscape. Sometimes this move works very well, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Chapter 30. Vicious Cycle, Virtuous Cycle
Chapter 31. Cherry Picking
Chapter 32. Big Bang Failures
Chapter 33. Competing over the Hard Side
Chapter 34. Bundling
Conclusion. The Future of Network Effects
It’s not just the ex-Uber network who will lead the charge, but rather, the alumni of all the companies mentioned in this book - Slack, Dropbox, Twitch, Microsoft, Zoom, Airbnb, PayPal, and dozens of others - who have learned about the power of viral growth, launching new markets, accelerating engagement, and the ways that network effects can offer a huge advantage. They will spread these ideas into the next generation of networked products that will transform entire industries.
See also
- Linked: the new science of networks
- Change: How to make big things happen