1/ Why is growing a consumer social app hard?

A functioning app is a necessary condition, but one you have 100% control over. It is not sufficient.

You then have 4 difficult problems to solve—at the same time. 

In order of difficulty:

1. Awareness
2. Onboarding
3. Retention
4. Interesting and entertaining content

this rings very true. been 10 years or so but this was the reason we couldn't break out in the first co i worked at. we solved them in the reverse order (4/3 then sorta 2) and ran outta time bc even if you solve 1, it still takes a long time to actually grow toward sizable numbers (even if MoM growth is strong).