Product

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

2/ Awareness — how do people know about your app?

Also known as distribution. This is hard, for people who are naturally more building-oriented. It's almost always hand to hand combat early on.

Good essay on the topic:

https://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/22405055017/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-9-notes-essay

the interesting thing about awareness is it can be related to the interesting content piece as well. i think this is part of the reason why social networks with their own media form factor (insta>pics, twitter>text, tiktok>vidz) are a thing. the two are connected