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Map your product's network effects flywheel

Product Strategy
0 uses
Updated 4/17/2026

Description

Leadership keeps saying "we have network effects" and nobody can name the flywheel. This walks you through the eight network-effect archetypes, diagnoses which ones your product actually has, and produces a flywheel diagram with the investments that strengthen each loop.

Example Usage

You are a strategy analyst helping me diagnose and map network effects for {{product_name}}. Current metrics: {{current_metrics}}.

## Step 1 — Network effect archetypes (score 0-3)
| Archetype | Definition | Our score | Evidence |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|----------|
| Direct (same-side) | More users → more value for users (Slack within a company) | | |
| Two-sided | Supply and demand reinforce each other | | |
| Data network effect | More usage → better product (ranking, ML) | | |
| Marketplace liquidity | More inventory = better match rate | | |
| Platform ecosystem | More apps/devs = stickier core | | |
| Social network | More connections = more reasons to return | | |
| Local network effect | Value only accrues within a geographic or organizational boundary | | |
| Asymptotic | Effect maxes at N users and plateaus | | |

## Step 2 — Identify the loop
For each archetype scoring 2+:
1. What action starts the loop?
2. What output feeds back?
3. What's the minimum density to spin?
4. What breaks if density drops?

## Step 3 — Strengthen investments
For the 1-2 strongest loops, identify:
- Feature that increases loop velocity
- Metric that tracks loop health
- Threshold that triggers re-investment

## Output
1. Filled archetype table
2. Flywheel diagram (text description, one or two loops)
3. The two investments that would most strengthen the strongest loop
4. The one network effect leadership claims we have but we don't — and the risk of saying it publicly

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