Tinder overcame the Cold Start Problem by launching on the University of Southern California campus. The founders leveraged their popular friends to promote the app at parties. Students had to download Tinder to allow party access. The next day, hundreds of hungover, like-minded students had a second chance at love via Tinder. This strategy attracted the hard side of the network, in this case, attractive women, which is crucial to solve the Cold Start Problem.

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Chen also distinguishes between the easy and hard sides of a given network. To solve the Cold Start Problem, products must, above all else, attract the hard side—sellers on a marketplace, content creators on a video platform, or in the case of Tinder, attractive women. Tinder launched on the University of Southern California campus. The founders leveraged their popular friends to promote the app at parties. Students had to download Tinder to allow party access. The next day, hundreds of hungover, like-minded students had a second chance at love via Tinder.

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The Cold Start Problem

When a networked product launches, it faces a chicken-and-egg problem: people need to use it for it to be worth anything. So how do you start the very...

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