[misterbowfinger]

These are good lessons, but we have to consider whether a piece of WeChat's growth has to do with government backing. It's much easier to design for increasing user value if you don't have to worry about a marketing strategy.

I'm not making a judgment on that - I'm just saying that it might not be applicable to all startups.

[anuh]

WeChat had a lot of competition from Chinese mobile-first messaging apps when they started. It was by no means easy for them to scale and drive user growth.