13 Business Characteristics for Viral Growth

Derived from…
Adam L Penenberg, Viral Loop

PROFIT : How do you create a business that reaches new customers quickly, scales up rapidly and has the potential to earn a huge amount of money in a short period of time? Here’s 13 business characteristics you’ll need to consider to make this happen.

1 Free

Adding a fee to your offer will slow down the adoption rate. Build a massive audience at no charge before looking to monetize. Model Google, Facebook, Twitter.

2 Web Based

It’s much easier to adopt these characteristics online.

3 Content Organizers

Let your users create the content. Be the one that organizes it. Provide a means to sort, search and access it. Mimic eBay, Flickr. Become the marketplace!

4 Stackability

Look for opportunities to lay your network over other expanding networks. YouTube rode MySpace. PayPal piggybacked eBay.

5 Easy 2 Use

The simpler the better! Visit Google’s home page.

6 Viral Built-in

Design the means to pass on your message in to your product. Hotmail added an email signature. LinkedIn asks you to invite your colleagues.

7 Predictable Growth

Products designed correctly will grow virally at predictable rates. This makes it way easier to forecast, plan and keep up with demand.

8 Network Effects

The more users play the more they will want to. Google search results get better the more people search. Design this into your business model.

9 Exponential Growth

Multiply your growth speed by allowing users to share with each other. Each one drawing in other new users.

10 Nondisplacement

The point of nondisplacement is when competitors can no longer take your number one position. Think Amazon for books and Google for search.

11 Ultimate Saturation

Your network will mature and growth will slow when your market is saturated. By this point you’ll have a huge user base.

12 Rapid Adoption

Go big fast. The quicker you grow the less chance your competitors have of catching you. Skype had 12 million users in 13 months. Hotmail 30 million in 30 months.

13 Viral Co-efficient

To grow exponentially, you need a viral co-efficient greater than 1. Anything less won’t be enough.