Builders

Andrew Chen on network effects and competing for growth in a rocketing market

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Daniel Bean
Managing Editor @ Mixpanel
Last Edited:
Jun 30, 2025
Published:
Dec 13, 2021

There’s a part at the top of The Cold Start Problem that’s great at setting up why the problems you examine in the book are important. You say, “Although software has been easier to build, growing products has not gotten easier,” and then you go on to explain growth in this time has become a “zero-sum” game as a result. With digital-first markets having exploded even more since you wrote that, what does anyone hoping to find growth for their product today need to understand about the landscape?

What you’re hitting on is the focus of the book—that so many of the best products capitalize on networks to grow, or have used network effects. You outline stages of capturing (and keeping) network effects. Can you walk us through what these look like and how some of the most important products from recent years have navigated them?

Looping back to this idea that competition has, in some ways, made it harder for products to find growth, which of the five stages of capturing networks effects do you think has become the most challenging to tackle today?

Let’s get into your own working experience a bit: Which of those five phases of growth has traditionally been your favorite to tackle?

Do you have a set of growth metrics or practices you’ve taken with you to every team you’ve joined or been an advisor for?

And what, if anything, about these growth formulas and practices that you’ve followed for so long have changed the most in recent years?

Speed round on the companies you’ve lent your expertise: What’s the best Substack you’d recommend about product or growth, the most interesting thing you’ve learned in a Clubhouse call, and your guilty pleasure Uber Eats order?

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Daniel Bean
Daniel Bean
Managing Editor @ Mixpanel