Do Things That Don't Scale — Paul Graham

Do Things That Don’t Scale

Author: Paul Graham Published: July 2013 URL: https://paulgraham.com/ds.html

Summary

One of Y Combinator’s most influential essays. Graham argues that startups must do unscalable things manually in the early days — recruit users one by one, provide extraordinary service, operate in narrow markets, and sometimes do the work by hand. The common thread: founders who think they can skip this phase and “launch” into growth are almost always wrong.

Key Claims

1. Nearly all startups must recruit users manually at the start
2. Creating extraordinary early user experiences (“delight”) compounds over time
3. Starting in a deliberately narrow market builds critical mass (Facebook at Harvard)
4. Big launches and partnerships almost never drive early growth
5. Founders must do sales themselves — cannot delegate
6. 10% weekly growth yields 14,000 users in year one

Concepts Referenced

• do-things-that-dont-scale
• user-acquisition
• product-market-fit

Backlinks

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