Do Things that Don't Scale
paulgraham.com
Do Things that Don't Scale
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Re: Do Things that Don't Scale
#2Re: Do Things that Don't Scale
#3Who wants to start a user-acquisition startup?
Re: Do Things that Don't Scale
#4Who wants to start a user-acquisition startup?
Acquiring users for other startups? Is that the business model you envision?
Re: Do Things that Don't Scale
#5PG: Do you see any other things founders typically think are going to scale and don't? (not-quite-unlike conferences)
Re: Do Things that Don't Scale
#6Re: Do Things that Don't Scale
#7I can think of quite a few startups that used a big bang launch with press with success. Off the top of my head - Instagram (MG's series of pieces on Techcrunch), Mailbox, Flipboard, Square, Path. I get where PG is coming from but press can help bootstrap a network effect if you have none.
Re: Do Things that Don't Scale
#8I was watching a presentation the other day and heard a relevant story. It was about one of the early internet companies during the first dotcom boom. It was a change of address service. You would input your information and the services you needed to cancel and/or change the address for and it would handle it for you. This was in the early days of the consumer web, so none of these companies had APIs for this company to call or even thier own web forms. This company processed its early orders using old ladies at typewriters and fax machines.
I really wish I could remember the name of the company, but theyr were acquired very quickly for a stupidly large sum of money.
Re: Do Things that Don't Scale
#9Who wants to start a user-acquisition startup?
Re: Do Things that Don't Scale
#10[deleted]