What is up everyone? This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and CEO of Morning Brew.

Welcome back to Founder's Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you the

business builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better,

whether that's building a business, a team, or a new product. And today, I'm back

with a Founder's Journal strategy session. As some of you know, I've been

reading a lot about business strategy. It's super important to building any

type of business, and I've wanted to journal about what I'm learning for my

listeners. Two weeks ago, I talked about what strategy even means. Last week, I

talked about one of the seven core strategies of powerful businesses, which is

economies of scale. Today, I'm talking about the second core strategy of powerful

businesses. And that is Drumroll, please. Network effects. I love thinking about

network effects. And it's probably because they play such a crucial role in all

of our lives. Facebook, Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, Twitter, Clubhouse, Apple, AT&T,

Tinder, eBay, the list goes on. All of these businesses have established dominance

through different versions of network effects. And by the end of this journal

entry, I want you to know what network effects are, how to identify them, and how to

think about them in the context of your own business. Let's hop into it. I have

always thought about network effects in a very singular way. And it's funny. I

actually don't think I learned about network effects in college, like in a macro

or microeconomic class. I think I first read about them. When I was reading Ben

Thompson's newsletter, Stratackery, and the basic concept I've always understood

is, as you add more people to your product, the product becomes better for

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