One of my first posts for this blog explored how mobile operators could exploit the network effects that characterize mobile money services by “subsidizing” early adopters—that is, by rewarding those who sign up and use a service early with deep discounts or bonuses to make up for the fact that there aren’t many other people on the network to transact with. It’s a classic pricing strategy in networked markets.

Recently, Airtel in Kenya launched a new promotion offering Airtel Money (formerly known as Zain Zap) customers free money transfers to both registered and unregistered customers. Although slated to run only for a short time, this promotion is a clear illustration of an attempt to subsidize participation in a network that has far fewer users than its competitor M-PESA, the most famous and well-established mobile money service in the world.

Such a move is risky, but not crazy. Ignacio Mas has pointed out that the online payments service PayPal lost $23 for every customer they signed up during their first 9 months of operation because they paid large sign-up bonuses and chose not to charge fees that were large enough to cover their variable costs. PayPal racked up millions of dollars of losses that way, but in the process it built a user base that it was later able to monetize: PayPal went on to a successful IPO and now has over 100 million active users around the globe.

For this tactic to work, a networked business must be willing to sustain losses up until the point that it has built a network large enough—which is to say, valuable enough—that users and potential users are willing to pay to use it.

We’ll see if this gambit pays off in Kenya.

Subsidizing early adopters is just one of the tactics that networked businesses can employ to exploit network effects. Previously, I’ve written about how network effects apply to mobile payments and their implications for target market selection and marketing communications.