A tipping point is the moment a small change accumulates enough weight to trigger a large, sudden shift — an idea, trend, or behavior crosses a threshold and spreads like an epidemic rather than growing linearly. The term was popularized by 📝Malcolm Gladwell's 2000 book of the same name, which frames social trends as contagious in the same way diseases are.

Gladwell's framework rests on three rules governing how social epidemics spread: the Law of the Few, which holds that a small number of unusually connected, persuasive, or expert people are responsible for starting most trends; the Stickiness Factor, the quality that makes a message or product memorable enough to act on; and the Power of Context, the observation that small, situational changes in environment can trigger outsized shifts in behavior. In business, the concept underlies why 📝Sandwiching marketplaces and other network-effect businesses often show flat growth for a long stretch before crossing a threshold into rapid, self-sustaining adoption.