Exactly. Well said. And thanks for the kind words
Exactly. Well said. And thanks for the kind words
As Paul Graham said in his essay “Do Things That Don’t Scale”: A lot of would-be founders believe that startups either take off or don’t. You build something, make it available, and if you’ve made a better mousetrap, people beat a path to your door as promised. Or they don’t, in which case the market must not exist. Actually startups take off becau... See more
Gabriel Weinberg • Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth
As Paul Graham said in his essay “Do Things That Don’t Scale”: A lot of would-be founders believe that startups either take off or don’t. You build something, make it available, and if you’ve made a better mousetrap, people beat a path to your door as promised. Or they don’t, in which case the market must not exist. Actually startups take off becau
... See moreGabriel Weinberg • Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth
It takes enormous discipline to NOT try to scale something that's working.
But some things just don't scale -- and trying to do so can destroy the golden goose in the process.
Many entrepreneurially minded people can't help themselves from trying.
Over-engaging with early users is not just a permissible technique for getting growth rolling. For most successful startups it's a necessary part of the feedback loop that makes the product good.Sometimes the right unscalable trick is to focus on a deliberately narrow market. It's like keeping a fire contained at first to get it really hot before a... See more