Roam’s Road Ahead (Nathan Baschez)

Nathan Baschez (Divinations) on whether Roam Research can become a network, not just a personal tool.

Why it was kept

Kyle kept the argument that the best software businesses are networks, that network effects usually have to be there from the start, Chris Dixon’s “come for the tool, stay for the network”, and the observation that teams were not yet running on Roam the way they run on Notion or Slack.

As Kyle captured it

• Roam’s road ahead by Nathan Baschez - Building the Global Knowledge Graph Building the Global Knowledge Graph Roam Research
  • The best software businesses are networks. When every new user that joins makes the network more valuable for the other users, it leads to a sort of accelerating value and growth that is one of the most powerful forces in the world. Nobody can copy the value you provide, because the value isn’t derived from your functionality, it comes from your user base. Network Effects
  • Network Effects are not the kind of thing you can usually just tack onto an existing product. When they’re strong enough to matter, they’re usually there from the very beginning, built into the core reason why people use the product in the first place.
  • As Chris Dixon put it, “The idea is to initially attract users with a single-player tool and then, over time, get them to participate in a network. The tool helps get to initial critical mass. The network creates the long term value for users, and defensibility for the company.”
  • But this behavior is not yet common, as far as I can tell. You don’t hear about teams running on Roam yet the same way people use Notion, Asana, and Slack to organize their work. When people think of Roam, they think of personal use.

Connections

Nathan Baschez · Roam Research · Network Effects · Chris Dixon · Building the Global Knowledge Graph