Facebook started college only and had no competition in that space, so they did well but had the luxury to expand slowly, essentially the B&J model in the article. When it was obvious the next step was to open themselves to the public at large, the social network lockin effect worked against them. Everyone at the time was using MySpace or Friendster or whatever else was popular at the time (I honestly don't remember). In order to make a dent, they had to hit hard and fast, so they took some funding and exploded out of the gate.
The point I'm trying to make is, Facebook mixed both the Amazon and the B&J model for growing a company. They did one, then the other, which really made sense for them considering the position they were in at the time.
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I couldn't agree more.
Facebook started college only and had no competition in that space, so they did well but had the luxury to expand slowly, essentially the B&J model in the article. When it was obvious the next step was to open themselves to the public at large, the social network lockin effect worked against them. Everyone at the time was using MySpace or Friendster or whatever else was popular at the time (I honestly don't remember). In order to make a dent, they had to hit hard and fast, so they took some funding and exploded out of the gate.
The point I'm trying to make is, Facebook mixed both the Amazon and the B&J model for growing a company. They did one, then the other, which really made sense for them considering the position they were in at the time.