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Who else is building a project that has the cold start problem?

I’m curious to know who else is building a project that has the cold start problem?

If you’re unaware, the cold start problem is basically the dilema with networked products: the value of the product depends on the number of users in the network actively engaging with each other.

I’m currently working on a social network for backpackers, hikers and adventures. My goal is to follow the mantra: “Come for the tool, stay for the network.”

If you haven’t read Andrew Chen’s book, I highly recommend it. The problem, though, is that most of his examples focus on well-funded products that can throw cash around to solve the cold start problem.

I’d be curious to hear how others are approaching this with their own networked products?

posted to Icon for group Book Club
Book Club
on February 19, 2022
  1. 7

    We're probably working on a very similar tool, but my approach (which may or may not be helpful) is to keep focusing on the 'tool' side more than the network-effect/community. If the only value is the network, then sure, it'll be hard to get off the ground. Typically, however, there's some value you can provide in the form of tools and guides for 'when they come', so focusing on that may be beneficial. Simply because focusing on trying to get a lot of people use your site without it providing any other value than offering itself up as a meeting point will be a hard sell for the first few regulars.

    I'll pick a related example from a very different industry: car forums. If you want to get a car forum started, you'd be best advised to have a treasure trove of documents, guides, downloads, tools and hacks first. People come for the content, but they stay for the community.

    1. 4

      "People come for the content, but they stay for the community", smart approach roman, thank you :)

    2. 2

      100% agree with this. You could stand up any social network and apply a niche to it, but if you haven't built the tools that are relevant to the niche, people can get the same value elsewhere. Thanks for the insights!

  2. 5

    Didn't know the term.

  3. 4

    I haven't read the book yet (it is waiting for me on my bookshelf though). But nevertheless, I have experience starting up a two-sided marketplace in the B2B space. Without sellers or buyers, there was no value for either side to sign up, so we faked it until we made it ^^

    What we did to get the first 1000 or so users (this was done within a couple of months):

    1. Found resources/buyers on the public internet and added them to our marketplace. This was initially done manually, and if a real seller tried to reach out to the "buyer", we directed the seller to the real buyer on an external/competitor platform (they needed to sign up our platform first though). We added quite many on a daily basis so it looked like there was a lot of activity on the platform.
    2. Connected and reached out to potential sellers on LinkedIn (the #1 channel), via email, and via phone.
    3. Did step 2 again but this time for potential buyers.
    4. Gradually stopped faking resources/buyers while signing up real ones.

    We also did a few other things, but a combination of 1 and 2 were the most effective steps that got us the most initial users for "free". As a side note, there was still a perceived value of being a seller even if you got directed to a resource on an external / competitor platform.
    A similar approach was done by Airbnb where they took listings from Craigslist, so would say that the tactics are quite generally applicable. However, we needed both public seller and buyer profiles. I can also point out that it was basically me and a colleague doing these things so we didn't have a big team, brand, or budget behind us.

    Hope the information is readable and useful. I tried to keep it anonymous and general as this is not my own project but a company I workd for.

  4. 4

    Hey Jerade, thanks for the book recommendation from Andrew Chen.

    Maybe it would be an idea to let some influencers for your niche into your team. This would be an easy & cost-efficient way to attract first users within that niche. They could potentially also easily reach out to other influencers and promote your platform.

    1. 1

      Yeah, that's a great point. Getting influencers on board who like the product is probably a solid way to get organic growth!

  5. 4

    Yes! I've read the Cold Start Problem. It's a great book with fantastic insight, albeit a little drawn out.

    We are building a social network to discover and discuss movies and shows and the three things that I've learnt (not just via the book) are:

    1. As roman mentioned, having non-social utility helps. Enough function that the user has something to do on the app/site that they doesn't rely on a lot of other users being active. For us, this was creating utilities that give movie/show recommendations on their OTTs and methods to log what users were watching.

    2. If you are a social/community platform with standard social network features (feed, likes, comments etc.), the biggest battle to fight is that of providing enough incentive for the users to use your app over Insta, FB, whatsapp etc.
      Those platforms offer an incredible set of features that can be used for almost any community. Photos, videos, chat, tagging, sorting algo and most importantly - a huge userbase. While the former is just a matter of building more features, the latter is nigh impossible to overcome quickly. So its best would be to niche down hard and offer very specific utilities.

    3. Creating atomic networks is key. Chen describes them as networks that function atomically on their own, regardless of the app's overall userbase growth.
      Example: Few employees in an org using Slack. Even if people in other orgs aren't using Slack, if it serves the utility for these 4 employees, then they would keep using and keep growing the network. Other examples are a sufficient amount of drivers-riders in an area or buyers-sellers / content creators-consumers in a niche.
      This is hard to identify and harder to scale, but vital to fostering a community that sticks around. Tbh, we haven't fully figured out how to do this part of the puzzle yet.

    I would definitely recommend the book, it really did help me streamline my thoughts for WatchDeck, our app.

    1. 2

      I'm about half way through it and really enjoy how he articulates the issues and the solutions to them. You're absolutely right on your second point: competing with "networking" features is a losing game – the big guys will always win. But, if you can find features that support a specific niche, it's much easier to capture and retain those users.

  6. 4

    Haven't read the book, so might be offtopic.

    Many of the communities I've been a part of and that have grown into something resembling a social network have started with a person or a small group of people talking about the subject.

    So a blog, a YouTube channel or similar. People gather around the idea, a community forms, they move to a forum type of place and from there it can grow to a social network type of thing.

    The most difficult part is having the core group that is involved and dedicated and the path through content and forum gives you that group of people.

  7. 3

    I've also ordered the book and I'm looking into this problem.

    I'm starting a side-project for content-creators and brand to get content for their communication on social media and websites and it definitely has a cold-start issue.
    My hint at the moment is to focus on a very specific niche willing to try the product and grow from there instead of trying to take it all in.

    Hopefully it will work out when we launch, and if not, I'll have to try something new 😄

  8. 3

    Haven't read the book yet but it's on my list.

    I did try to build a networked product before, in fact for business networking purposes. And it's extremely hard. Esp it's not 2010 anymore. People get flooded with content, social media, discord groups, forums, slack channels. It's very hard to set up a welcoming network with a high engagement rate. At one point, I think making a small premium group (which require commitment and payment), and building very close relationship might even be better.

  9. 2

    I would talk to Anna Maste- I think @namaste on indiehhackers. She made Boon Dockers Welcome, a marketplace for RVers to find hosts who will let them park on their property. It was very successful. I was a customer myself in my van lifing days.

  10. 2

    Thanks for this post. I will check that book out. The cold start problem has been a legitimate concern for an idea that I’d like to build.

  11. 2

    I think that you have thrown yourself into one of the hardest path, so more power to you. Not exactly the same thing, but I remember building a two-sided marketplace, which very much has the same problem: you need a lot of people from day one and you can't scale slowly.
    I call these type of models chicken-and-egg because you fall into the age old question: which came first? The sellers will tell you that they will come once you have the buyers and the buyers will tell you that they will come once you have sellers.
    And in the meantime you are stuck with nothing.

    Being transparent, I've failed every time I've started a two-sided product, both alone and with co-founders, but I hope that for you things will go better, good luck!

  12. 2

    I am building a social donation platform https://www.make-impact.org/ . It's non-profit, so maybe it isn't directly related to indie hacking, but the idea is the same.

    While the development is done, I created a short landing page where I collect the email addresses of interested people and the causes they care about. I am not 100% sure how I will use that information, but at least I can see the pulse of how much the website is needed or not needed and what people care about most.

  13. 2

    What I did for my creator network site is by automatically feed in related content via RSS. They come to read content before there is any network effect.

    This is a very much-needed topic to talk about for any network-based website or app. I wish there is any niche community around this topic, any suggestions? Hoping to discuss more on this.

  14. 2

    I am literally reading the book now for my social messaging app: heartstring.app

    1. 1

      Absolutely love the colors on your website! The site overall is so pleasing to the eye.

      Do add a signup waitlist, guessing the Play Store links are just placeholder as they lead me to the Store home page.

      1. 1

        Thanks! Yes there is still work to be done. The concept is so rough and early that I did not want to invest more time and energy into refining things but I do agree that this still needs to be done without a doubt.

  15. 1

    I'm currently facing this problem. I built an MVP for entrepreneurs and marketers to amplify each others marketing efforts but I don't want to launch, even in beta, without enough users to give it value. I currently have a waiting list landing page (https://thegrowthpack.unicornplatform.page/) but it's challenging to get the numbers necessary without a big budget and a solution people can immediately benefit from.

    I've read some Andrew Chen's articles but I wasn't aware of this book. Thanks for recommending it. I'll have to check it out. Are there any particular chapters or insights from it that you find particularly useful?

  16. 1

    We’re working on a similar idea and it’s the concern I have to. I’m off to order the book now as I hadn’t heard about it!

    I think starting with a small target market is one approach, and what I intend to do. 1000 users scattered around the world will mean a bad user experience for all of them. 1000 users in a condensed space will offer more value.

    Are you part of any local meet up groups you can go to and get early users?

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