1/ Viral Effects are NOT Network Effects. Even experienced Founders conflate them. Missing the difference leads to colossal failures in strategy.

Here’s what to know:

nfx.com/post/viral-eff… 2/ Viral effects are about growth. They happen when existing customers get you NEW customers for free, accelerating growth.

Network effects are about DEFENSIBILITY. They happen when customers add incremental value for other customers, making it hard to compete with your product

1/ The sudden cultural shift to remote work represents an opportunity. Companies that adapt their hiring process to the new era will become magnets for talent.

Today I'm sharing our playbook for interviews and hiring in the remote era. nfx.com/post/34-questi… 2/ Like with big technology shifts such as web-to-mobile, rapid cultural shifts can provide a ledge on which to build iconic companies.

Startups are the most adaptable part of the economy, so the cultural shift to remote will benefit them more than large companies.

1/ Some advice about advice. As Founders, we get a lot of advice... from a lot of people. Not all valuable. But there will be gems, and spotting them can change your company.

4 key areas to navigating advice — mastering them enables decision superpowers.

nfx.com/post/guide-fou… 2/ Here are the 4 keys to navigating advice:

1. Be ruthless when choosing your network of advisors
2. Manage the psychology of advice — yours and the givers
3. Differentiate the types of decisions you're trying to make when getting advice
4. Learn judgment about good/bad advice

Thread: What city you live in. Who you date or marry. Which job you choose.

We think we make these choices ourselves. The unseen hand in them all is the networks that surround us.

Networks are key to life's 7 big crossroads:
nfx.com/post/your-life… Crossroad #1 - What Family You're Born Into

Life's most influential networks have high interaction frequency, are adopted early in life, have many overlapping strong ties & shared connections.

In all of these measures, few of our other networks in life can rival family

One of the things we look for in Founders we invest in is a deep understanding of networks & network effects (nfx). In the internet age, this is such an advantage that we made it a core part of our investing thesis. It's why we're called NFX @nfxguild. Companies with network effects are the most highly valued because they produce increasing returns. But it's not easy to get network effects going. Today I want to share 19 of the top resources for understanding & building networks and defensibility.