Doing Things That Don’t Scale
Katherine Jane D. Unsay | BSCHEM 2H2
One of the most prevalent pieces of advise provided to start-ups at Y Combinator is to “do things that don’t scale.” This suggestion states that in the early stages of a startup, the founders should focus on doing things manually rather than building things that will help them to scale/grow quickly. Start-ups don’t often experience hockey stick growth by themselves. They need a nudge from founders, who need to aggressively market their products and be overly attentive to users in the beginning.
A lack of trust in the founders is one of the most common causes for a startup to fail early on. “When it comes to an early-stage startup, the question to ask isn’t ‘is this company going to take over the world?’ but rather ‘how big could this firm be if the founders did the right things?’” Graham is a writer. “And doing the right thing might feel both time-consuming and insignificant at the same time.” We as founders really enjoy that orgasmic thought of having millions of users talking about our product. I’ve been there, and if you’re a founder, I know you’ve been there too. Most firms appear to have nailed the right product on the first try, and it was so great that it went viral and quickly surpassed a million users.
I did a lot of research on what it means to do things that don’t scale. Many blogs discuss the value of doing things that don’t scale, but few go into detail about how to execute them. Here are some of the most fascinating facts I discovered.
1. Get your own hands dirty
You can’t sit back and wait for the finished product throughout the early stages of product development. This is the ideal moment to get your hands dirty and learn as much as you can about the industry. Talk to individuals to learn about their problems, try out existing solutions to see what can be improved, and get involved in the development process.
2. Only build what is really needed
To begin testing the waters, you don’t need the finished product. The process of development is nearly never completed. There is always room for improvement. However, getting started is simple. Buffer, for example, began accepting payments without even putting in place a payment gateway!
3. Establish a personal connection
Simple things like this are important in the beginning. Email can help you develop excellent relationships with your customers. You can genuinely react to every single email and stay in touch with them when you’re just starting out. Begin by greeting them and asking them questions to pique their attention.
These are just a few pointers to help you scale as you develop your product. Remember, there’s no reason you can’t discover a solution if you want to fix a problem. Now get out there and have some fun. Take the risk, the risk of taking that leap of faith. Everything you do is motivated by your desire to see your vision come to life. Take what you’ve learned from the data and move on.