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.

Moon 101 | National Geographic

Kevin O'Leary Gets Triggered

View All

63% of Millennials Regret Buying a Home

What’s up, you guys? It’s Graham here. So, we got to talk about this one. A new survey was just released that found that 63% of millennial homeowners regret buying their home. Now, typically when I read articles like this, they tend to exaggerate the trut…

Ride Along With a Team of Lion Protectors | Expedition Raw

Right now, we’re looking for a group of lions that we heard were in the area. When we locate them, we want to pass this information on to the lion anti-snaring team so that they can come to the area, check it for snares, and prevent any lions from getting…

Area with partial grids | Area | 3rd grade | Khan Academy

We’re told the following rectangle is partially split into unit squares. What is the area of the rectangle above? So, pause this video and see if you can figure that out. All right, now let’s do this together. So first, it’s good to just know what do the…

Jessica Livingston's Advice For Founders

I’m going to switch from talking about my own story to give you my general advice for Founders. This is very sort of quick advice. Um, the most important quality you can have is determination. I’ve seen so many smart and talented Founders fail because the…

Introduction to remainders

We’re already somewhat familiar with the idea of division. If I were to say 8 divided by 2, you could think of that as 8 objects: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Divided into equal groups of two. So how many equal groups of two could you have? Well, you could hav…

Photographing Animal Migrations, the Heartbeat of Yellowstone | Nat Geo Live

Joe: My goal with this project was to make five or ten really beautiful pictures. Essentially, giving a voice to these animals, a visual voice. And it was this picture right here that I think gets at the essence of this migration. She is on the move. (au…

Virality and network effects drive organic growth.

More Articles