Win — a rule I filed under the wrong heading.

I shipped a rule that a member profile cannot go public without a photo and a bio. I filed it under data quality and moved on.

It turned out to be the growth lever. Every published profile is complete, so every profile is worth sharing — and members started posting their own profiles and the community map to their own audiences without being asked.

The lesson I keep relearning: friction that protects the output is not the same as friction that protects the process. The first one pays for itself.

More on the mechanic in when members start sharing their own profile.