an old piece i hadn’t shared publicly on the bird app out of self-censorship…

based on andrew chen’s book, “the cold start problem” and extended to considerations for interoperable networks (think LN or nostr).

when building products for closed networks, the goal is to eventually build a moat.

when building products for interoperable networks, the goal is to grow by providing the best UX.

products for interoperable networks can better overcome the cold start problem by seeking to be symbiotic with other interoperable networks (nostr with LN) and parasitic towards closed networks (twitter).

initially, similar products for an interoperable network are symbiotic with each other (eg each nostr social client improves the ux for users of other nostr social clients).

eventually, as the network reaches a global ceiling, parasitism among similar products will increase as a few will dominate and eat away at less popular products.

building for interoperable networks is a new paradigm now that we have digitally native sound money and new open protocols developing on the web. this paradigm breaks old VC models and it will be interesting to see how venture capital in a more open and bitcoinizing world develops.