Virality and network effects drive organic growth.

less than 1m read

·Nov 3, 2024

The best consumer companies incorporate both virality and network effect, which are different concepts but very closely related, in order to grow their user base organically.

Virality is the idea that one user using your product introduces it to other users somehow in the use of your product, whereas network effect is the idea that the product gets better the more nodes in the network exist.

I'll give you an example from Facebook's early days. So, when you took a picture on Facebook and uploaded it, you were prompted to tag your friends, even if they weren't already on Facebook. Those friends would get an email saying, "Hey, someone's tagged a photo of you; sign up to view the photo." That's a viral mechanic.

By uploading the photo and tagging your friends, you spread it to new users. A network effect comes from Metcalfe's Law: the value of the network is the square of the nodes in a network.

What that basically means is the more people who use this thing, the more valuable it gets. So, WhatsApp is a great example of this.

15 Books That Will Change Your Perception of Reality

Leonard Susskind on Richard Feynman, the Holographic Principle, and Unanswered Questions in Physics

View All

Newton's third law conceptual worked example

Block A with mass m sits on top of block B with mass 2m in an elevator. The elevator is moving downward and slowing down. All right, when we have this diagram over here, it’s moving downward and slowing down, so that means it’s accelerating upwards. The m…

Manipulating expressions using structure (example 2) | High School Math | Khan Academy

We’re told, suppose ( a + b ) is equal to ( 2a ). Which of these expressions equals ( b - a )? All right, I encourage you to pause the video and see if you can figure that out. Which of these expressions would be equal to ( b - a )? It’s going to just in…

Volume with cross sections: intro | Applications of integration | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

You are likely already familiar with finding the area between curves, and in fact, if you’re not, I encourage you to review that on Khan Academy. For example, we could find this yellow area using a definite integral. But what we’re going to do in this vi…

Worked examples: interpreting definite integrals in context | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

Julia’s revenue is r of t thousand dollars per month, where t is the month of the year. Julia had made three thousand dollars in the first month of the year. What does three plus the definite integral from one to five of r of t dt equals 19 mean? We have …

Why Black Holes Could Delete The Universe – The Information Paradox

Black holes are the most powerful things in the universe, strong enough to rip whole stars into atom-sized pieces. Well, this is scary enough. They have an even more powerful and dark property: they might delete the universe itself. Black holes in a nuts…

Worked example: analyzing an ocean food web | Middle school biology | Khan Academy

So this diagram right over here describes a food web, and a food web models how energy and matter move in an ecosystem. We’re going to use this food web to answer some questions to make sure we understand food webs. So the first thing I’m going to ask yo…

Virality and network effects drive organic growth.

More Articles