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

I've always believed that for a new consumer app to succeed, it must offer a new form of content delivery. That serves as a healthy base to tackle the 4 problems that you have listed. 

Almost all of the mainstream social apps did started/popularised a new form of media consumption