PMISV Monthly Book Club | The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen

PMISV Monthly Book Club | The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen

 

The Monthly Book Club is a forum for talking about books that touch on the widely varied challenges of project and program management.

 

 

 

About the Book

The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen

A startup executive and investor draws on expertise developed at the premier venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and as an executive at Uber to address how tech’s most successful products have solved the dreaded "cold start problem”—by leveraging network effects to launch and scale toward billions of users.

Although software has become easier to build, launching and scaling new products and services remains difficult. Startups face daunting challenges entering the technology ecosystem, including stiff competition, copycats, and ineffective marketing channels. Teams launching new products must consider the advantages of “the network effect,” where a product or service’s value increases as more users engage with it. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants utilize network effects, and most tech products incorporate them, whether they’re messaging apps, workplace collaboration tools, or marketplaces. Network effects provide a path for fledgling products to break through, attracting new users through viral growth and word of mouth.

Yet most entrepreneurs lack the vocabulary and context to describe them—much less understand the fundamental principles that drive the effect. What exactly are network effects? How do teams create and build them into their products? How do products compete in a market where every player has them? Andrew Chen draws on his experience and on interviews with the CEOs and founding teams of LinkedIn, Twitch, Zoom, Dropbox, Tinder, Uber, Airbnb, and Pinterest to offer unique insights in answering these questions. Chen also provides practical frameworks and principles that can be applied across products and industries. 

The Cold Start Problem reveals what makes winning networks thrive, why some startups fail to successfully scale, and, most crucially, why products that create and compete using the network effect are vitally important today.

 

About the Author

Andrew Chen is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, investing in early stage startups — focused on the themes of games/entertainment, marketplaces, and next-gen social products. He is on the boards of Clubhouse, Substack, Z League, Sleeper, All Day Kitchens, Sandbox VR, Reforge, and others.

Previously, he served as the head of Uber's rider growth teams, where he focused on user acquisition, retention, and engagement during the company's meteoric pre-IPO years. He writes about user growth, metrics, and network effects at andrewchen.com and has been cited at Wired, WSJ, and New York Times. He holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington, where he graduated at the age of 19.

 

Registration

• Required and limiting attendees. First come first serve.
• Zoom link to be distributed to registrants on the day of the event. Look for a Zoom invitation the day of the event from scotchlas@gmail.com. Feel free to set that not to go to your junk mail.

 

About the SV Monthly Book Club : 

 

List of Books for 2025 and prior years : Click Here for more information

The SV Monthly Book Club is a no-cost forum to discuss books and publications that touch on various topics about project and program management. It recurs on the 3rd Thursday each month, virtually. There is no club membership, and anyone can join the discussion forum of the month. To attend the forum, please pre-register (for free) and be sure you have pre-read the book of the month. Registration is necessary as we are limiting the number of attendees, so that everyone has a chance to express their opinion and listen to others.

This is a professional event. While we are open to opinions from all angles during the book discussions, please be respectful to the host and all attendees.

About the Event Leader

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marc Scotchlas - Event Host (Contact Marc)

Serving at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Marc completed a career in the Navy and after retiring in 2018, joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as Shot Director at the National Ignition Facility. After managing operations at the world’s premier laser facility that has achieved ignition, he has taken on several other challenges including recapitalizing more than twenty thousand square feet of laboratory space, saving more than $330,000. Residing in the Bay area, he is perpetually expanding his horizons.

  

Additional Information

PDU: Up to 5.0 PDU to complete the pre-reading; 1.0 to participate in the monthly meeting. PDU claim code available to attendees at end of event.

♦PDU claiming instruction

 

Recognize that PDU credit may be partial if you've read only the part of the book that you will read, or that full credit can be taken later after the discussion event is complete and you have completed the entire book.  There's no drop-dead requirement by the discussion date for reading, but the discussion is much fuller if you've read the entire book.