Startup Experts Discuss Doing Things That Don't Scale

What's something you've done at your own startup that is a good example of "doing things that don't scale"?

PG essays as YouTube with modern examples? I'm here for it! Great stuff!

Do things that don't scale is so true, I used to install PCs and run ethernet in the walls of medical clinics just to get to know the medical staff and doctors for my first startup.

Such a great video. I just sent it over to one of my clients who needs this advice so badly. Thanks for helping me communicate it well!

Michael Seibel trying really hard to pretend he has not heard the story 1000 times before

Always dropping those gems 💎

Absolutely loved your video discussing Paul Graham's "Do Things That Don't Scale" philosophy! It's such a timeless piece of advice that resonates deeply, especially in the dynamic world of startups and entrepreneurship. At Global Ventures HQ, we're big believers in this approach too. It's all about focusing on personalized, hands-on support to empower entrepreneurs and businesses at every stage of their journey. Looking forward to more insightful content from you!

This video is for me. Thank you YC Partners.

Absolutely agree on the power of non-scalable actions in the early stages of a startup! It’s those initial, hands-on experiences that really teach founders what their customers truly need. 💡

I did this exact thing: started a Trader Joe's delivery service. I didn't have outside capital, so instead of buying one of each item like Instacart, I bought people's receipts and took pictures of the items in the store. The service went viral in Manhattan, but Trader Joe's corporate and their lawyers came after me extremely aggressively. Nonetheless, this is good advice.

I manually verify users on my social platform by calling them individually to ensure they are real. Only reason it worked so far is because I have no users 😊

Personally, I think one of the best "things that don't scale" things a founder can do is spending a lot of time speaking with customers, even the annoying ones

This came at the right time. I got a working mvp together in 3 days, and made a demo too. Got some interest online, but then i started noticing it didn't always work earlier this week. Began re-writing the backend. I'm rethinking that. there's a freaking product, let's go find people

This is journeyman advice and not destination lover business advice. What I heard: 1. Set the tone even if you have to do it yourself to get the customers you want. 2. Manage and record delight. 3. Be multi-layered in your approach to energy expenditure to secure profits. 4. Don't miss your moment by thinking about scaleable perfection. 5. Realize non-scalable businesses are secure places for VCs to learn how to/ where to store cash. 6. Humility will maximilize your learnings in case someone scales on your idea before you can.

14:00 is the most important part, at least in my sector. Building relationships in your user community is so important. Show them you're worthy of trust before getting them to use your service. 9 times out of 10, brand and relationship is more important than selling.

Interesting! This is an example of structural coupling where organisms and environments change in a complementary way through recursive interactions. We think the organism just adapted to external objects, but the organism and environment have to go through a process of co-creating the object. In other words, founders need an environment (users and other stakeholders) to operate within so they can go through this process of object construction (finding the product.) The users are as much a part of this process as the founders. And you shouldn't/can't scale until this structural coupling occurs, which is product-market fit. But again, it's not the product fitting into an existing market. The founder and users interact to create the product-market coupling.

Interesting stuff, thanks guys.

Love the conversation from the great minds

Great insights

One of the best content🔥