Paul Graham: Do Things that Don't Scale

leadership

I really enjoyed reading Paul Graham's essay "Do Things that Don't Scale" - counterintuitive advice for startups in their "larval" stage. Some highlights:

  • Recruit users manually. Yes, one by one.
  • The Collison brothers didn't send links. "Give me your laptop" - and they'd set you up on the spot
  • Founders avoid this because it feels small. It can't be how the big startups got started, they think. It is.
  • Send hand-written thank you notes. Your first users should feel like signing up was one of the best choices they ever made.
  • Engineers aren't trained for this. We build elegant systems, not hover over users. "You can be ornery when you're Scotty, but not when you're Kirk."
  • The feedback from your earliest users will be the best you ever get.
  • If you can solve a problem manually, do it manually. Automate the bottlenecks later.
  • The Big Launch rarely works. Think of successful startups. How many launches do you remember?