Solve the Most Difficult Problem for the Hard Side to Spark Momentum

Early online dating sites—think the clunky, form-heavy Match.com or JDate—created more stress than spark for their most popular users. The same few attractive members, often women, would receive hundreds of generic messages, while the rest languished, possibly never connecting. Both sides felt burnt out and frustrated, and the networks never reached meaningful scale.

Now, enter the mobile era. Tinder’s team observed that the pain wasn’t just lack of matches; it was overload and the trouble of sorting the meaningful from the mass. They introduced a design twist: users could swipe right to like or swipe left to pass, and only if both swiped right could messages start. Suddenly, power users regained control over their attention, and anxiety turned into entertainment. Swiping became a frictionless way to obliterate the wall of unwanted messages and restore agency.

The lesson wasn’t just for dating apps. In any scenario where a handful of contributors receive outsize attention or responsibility, complexity piles up fast. The smart move is to obsess over the major pain these power users face, then solve it so elegantly they can’t help but embrace and champion your platform. The rest of the network will follow.

Focus first on what’s uniquely frustrating for your hardest-working, core users—ignore the bells and whistles, and solve something big they can’t get elsewhere. Build and release rapidly, then watch engagement indicators for those contributors specifically. When you see them light up, you’ve turned a pain point into a growth engine. Reach out today to a key user, ask what one thing drives them nuts, and start prototyping a solution just for them.