Metcalfe's Law

The value of a network doesn't grow linearly with each new member — it grows with the square of connections, meaning early growth feels worthless and late growth feels explosive. This creates a brutal cold-start problem where networks must survive a long period of apparent failure before hitting critical mass. Most network businesses die not because the model is wrong, but because they run out of resources before reaching the inflection point where n² math takes over.

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