I used to share some of your skepticism — a lot of network visualizations do feel like scientistic performance art. That started to shift for me after discovering NFX and reading The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen. I began thinking more seriously about network effects when I applied for my first U.S. patent after leaving JP Morgan Chase, where I spent 14 years in technology, leadership, and innovation. That experience led to the early ideas behind Nodes.bio.

I do rely on Cytoscape.js as a rendering engine — so I want to be transparent about that. But I’ve moved deliberately away from the legacy metaphors and plugin model of desktop Cytoscape. Nodes.bio is browser-native, install-free, and designed for speed, storytelling, and shareability. It's built for researchers, founders, investors, and even patients — not just PhD bioinformaticians.

I understand the “performance art” critique, but I’ve seen what happens when visualization actually delivers insight. One of my early users, Dr. Patrick Sewell, a clinical geneticist, has gone on record saying:

    “Nodes.bio transformed my hand-drawn network into a publication-quality, interactive diagram in minutes—something I simply couldn't have achieved with any other tool.”

And even from a utilitarian standpoint — forget truth claims, just ask: does this help people make better decisions, faster, with fewer errors? From what I’ve seen: yes. Visual structure helps surface non-obvious connections, prioritize experiments, flag off-target effects, and bridge gaps between data producers and decision makers. That’s reason enough to keep going.

As for scaling: I’m running on AWS ECR/EB, so infrastructure is solid. The real challenge is cognitive scaling — how to keep massive biological networks legible and meaningful. That’s where I’m focusing next.

I’ll also be publishing the Nodes.bio APIs in the near future — because the value here isn’t just in pretty diagrams, it’s in enabling others to build, extend, and integrate with their own data pipelines, dashboards, or discovery workflows.

Appreciate the challenge. If you do decide to build in this space, I’d love to trade notes!

-John