There’s one rule of thumb that’s proven true over and over again: the best version of every consumer product is the one that’s intrinsically social.  

Tiktok. Fortnite. Minecraft. Pinduoduo. These phenomena are what I call “social+” companies: companies that take a single category—from gaming to music to ecommerce—and build an integrated social experience around it.  

Any product that has a social component baked in has fundamental and asymmetric advantages over competing non-social products in that category: better growth loops, better engagement, better retention, better defensibility. And because social+ companies are network and community driven, that advantage accumulates over time. 

The key isn’t the rule itself, but the implication for founders trying to compete: No category is really won until the social product is built. Even seemingly entrenched incumbents in big, enticing categories like personal finance and real estate are surprisingly vulnerable to scrappy upstarts if they’ve failed to make their products sufficiently social.  

Herein lies the opportunity. Not every product category has had its social moment—yet. Just as every industry makes the crucial transition from analog to digital, nearly every category of company will eventually make the fateful transition from single-player to multiplayer, from company-driven to community-driven, from individual to social.

Through the inevitable cycles of consumer social, there is enormous opportunity for founders who can thoughtfully build social+ companies.

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