I’m going to tell you something that might sound crazy. Most of what you’ve read about viral marketing is probably wrong. Dead wrong.
I’m not a theorist. I’m a builder. I’ve been in the trenches for over a decade, building companies from the ground up. Two of those companies, MovieLaLa and RemoteTeam, had successful exits, acquired by Gfycat and Gusto, respectively. I’ve also been fortunate enough to invest in over 200 startups, including some names you might recognize, like Anthropic, OpenAI, Scale AI, and Hugging Face. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t, not from a textbook, but from the real, messy, exhilarating world of startups.
And I’m here to tell you that the secret to viral growth isn’t a clever trick or a marketing hack. It’s not about a perfectly engineered “viral loop.” It’s something much more fundamental, something that most founders and marketers overlook. It’s the one thing that, if you get it right, will make growth almost inevitable. If you get it wrong, you’ll be spinning your wheels, chasing vanity metrics, and wondering why your product isn’t taking off.
The One Thing That Matters More Than Anything Else
So, what is this magical “one thing”? It’s user-to-user value.
That’s it. Simple, right? But don’t let the simplicity fool you. This is a concept that has profound implications for how you build your product, how you market it, and how you think about growth.
User-to-user value means that your product becomes more valuable to a user when other users are on the platform. It’s the core of every truly viral product. Think about it:
- Facebook is useless without your friends.
- WhatsApp is useless without your contacts.
- Dropbox is more useful when you can share files with others.
- Slack is more useful when your whole team is on it.
This is not a new idea. It’s the core of network effects. But what’s new is the way we need to think about it in today’s crowded market. It’s not enough to have a product that’s “better” than the competition. It needs to be fundamentally more valuable when used with others.
My MovieLaLa Story: A Lesson in Accidental Virality
When we started MovieLaLa, our vision was simple: to create the best movie discovery app on the planet. We had a beautiful design, a comprehensive database of movies, and a recommendation engine that was second to none. We were proud of what we had built. But we had a problem. Nobody was using it.
We tried everything. We ran Facebook ads. We did content marketing. We even hired a PR firm. We got a few thousand users, but they weren’t sticking around. Our retention was terrible. We were burning through cash, and I was starting to panic.
One day, we had a crazy idea. What if we let users create their own “movie lists” and share them with their friends? It was a simple feature, almost an afterthought. We built it in a week and pushed it to the App Store.
And then, something amazing happened. The app started to grow. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. We looked at the data, and we realized what was happening. People were creating lists of their favorite movies, their favorite actors, their favorite directors, and they were sharing them with their friends. And their friends were signing up to see the lists, and then they were creating their own lists, and so on.
We had accidentally stumbled upon user-to-user value. MovieLaLa was no longer just a movie discovery app. It was a way for people to connect with their friends over their shared love of movies. It was a way to express their identity, their taste, their personality. And that was something that people were willing to share.
We leaned into it. We made it easier to create and share lists. We added social features, like comments and likes. We even created a “list of the week” to showcase the best user-generated content. And the app exploded. We went from a few thousand users to millions, and we did it with a marketing budget of almost zero.
The Mistakes That Cost Us Thousands
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. We made a lot of mistakes along the way. I remember one time we spent over $50,000 on a campaign with a big-name influencer. We thought it was a sure thing. The influencer had millions of followers, and we were convinced that they would all flock to our app.
We were wrong. The campaign was a complete flop. We got a spike in downloads, but the users didn’t stick around. They weren’t the right users. They weren’t interested in creating and sharing movie lists. They were just there because their favorite influencer told them to be. It was a painful lesson, but it taught us something important. You can’t buy your way to virality. You have to earn it.
My RemoteTeam Story: Building a Community, Not Just a Product
When we started RemoteTeam, we were determined to apply the lessons we had learned from MovieLaLa. We knew that we needed to build a product with user-to-user value at its core. But RemoteTeam was a B2B product. How could we create user-to-user value in a business context?
The answer was community. We realized that remote teams were struggling with more than just the logistical challenges of working from home. They were struggling with a lack of connection, a lack of culture, a lack of community. So we built RemoteTeam to solve that problem.
RemoteTeam wasn’t just a collection of tools for remote teams. It was a platform for building a remote-first culture. We had features like virtual water coolers, team-building activities, and a “kudos” system for recognizing and rewarding great work. We made it easy for remote teams to connect with each other, to build relationships, to feel like they were part of something bigger than themselves.
And it worked. Our users became our biggest advocates. They told their friends, their colleagues, their professional networks about RemoteTeam. They wrote blog posts about us. They tweeted about us. They became our sales force. And we grew, not because we had a massive marketing budget, but because we had a product that people loved and a community that people wanted to be a part of.
The Viral Marketing Playbook I Wish I Had
So, after eight years of learning, what’s the playbook? Here are the principles that I believe are essential for building a truly viral product:
- Start with user-to-user value. Don’t bolt it on as an afterthought. Make it the core of your product. Ask yourself: how does my product become more valuable to a user when other users are on the platform?
- Focus on a niche. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Find a small, passionate community of users and build a product that they love. They will be your first evangelists.
- Build a community, not just a product. Give your users a sense of belonging. Give them a reason to connect with each other. Give them a reason to care.
- Make it easy to share. This sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many products get it wrong. Your sharing flow should be seamless, intuitive, and rewarding.
- Don’t be afraid to have a strong opinion. Don’t try to please everyone. Have a point of view. Stand for something. People are drawn to products with a strong identity.
- Listen to your users. This is the most important principle of all. Your users are your best source of ideas, your best source of feedback, your best source of inspiration. Talk to them. Listen to them. Build the product that they want.
The “Why” Behind the Playbook
This playbook isn’t about a set of tactics. It’s about a mindset. It’s about a fundamental shift in how you think about growth. It’s about understanding that growth is not something you do to your users. It’s something you do with your users.
When you build a product with user-to-user value at its core, you’re not just building a product. You’re building a network. You’re building a community. You’re building a movement. And that’s something that no amount of marketing money can buy.
My Challenge to You
So, here’s my challenge to you. Stop chasing vanity metrics. Stop wasting your time on marketing hacks that don’t work. Stop trying to buy your way to growth.
Instead, go back to the drawing board. Look at your product. Look at your users. And ask yourself: what is the user-to-user value of my product? How can I make my product more valuable to a user when other users are on the platform?
If you can answer that question, you’ll be well on your way to building a truly viral product. And you’ll be well on your way to building a business that matters.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the most common pushback you get on this?
People often push back by citing exceptions or edge cases. And they're usually right that exceptions exist. But building a strategy around exceptions rather than patterns is a losing game for most founders.
Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.
What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 200+ startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.
How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.