num_pages: 386
description: A venture capitalist draws on expertise developed at the premier venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and as an executive at Uber to address how techs most successful products have solved the dreaded cold start problemby leveraging networks effects to launch and scale towards billions of users. Although software has become easier to build launching and scaling new products and services remains difficult. Startups face daunting challenges entering the technology ecosystem including stiff competition copycats and ineffective marketing channels. Teams launching new products must consider the advantages of the network effect where a product or services value increases as more users engage with it. Apple Google Microsoft and other tech giants utilize network effects and most tech products incorporate them whether theyre messaging apps workplace collaboration tools or marketplaces. Network effects provide a path for fledgling products to break through attracting new users through viral growth and word of mouth.Yet most entrepreneurs lack the vocabulary and context to describe themmuch less understand the fundamental principles that drive the effect. What exactly are network effects? How do teams create and build them into their products? How do products compete in a market where every player has them? Andrew Chen draws on his experience and on interviews with the CEOs and founding teams of LinkedIn Twitch Zoom Dropbox Tinder Uber Airbnb Pinterest  to provide unique insights in answering these questions. Chen also provides practical frameworks and principles that can be applied across products and industries. The Cold Start Problem reveals what makes winning networks successful why some startups fail to successfully scale and most crucially why products that create and compete using the network effect are vitally important today.
language: English
title: The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects
publisher: Harper Business