“Do things that don't scale.” - Paul Graham
Counter-intuitive but this Paul Graham advice has some real wisdom.
Marketers often get lost in the world of startup hacks and scalable strategies. This usually happens when trying to emulate the success of some other startup.
The core fallacy of this approach is equating all startups and markets as equivalent.
Of course startups have replicated some formula from the past and scaled successfully. But if you actually work out the details of what they implemented for scale, you might discover that they just took the philosophy and customized it in a way that might not even have looked like the idea they started with.
However, the shine of scalable processes is too enchanting. And amongst such a hypnotic room of strategy this quote comes like spell-breaking breath of air.
The problems with scale
One of the best arguments about the disadvantages of doing things that scale I could think of is this:
If something's scalable, then it's mostly repeatable.
This means that your competitor or someone else can repeat it.
The might do it even better in the second iteration.
Think of writing lots of content via AI to usurp the SERPs. (Pun probably intended).
It's highly scalable. But then anyone else can do it as well. So even today, technically the best strategy still would be to write content that stands out rather than just mass producing it.
Of course, this doesn't mean that scalability shouldn't be sought. Using scalability in a way that it cannot be replicated is an art.
The idea of doing things that don't scale doesn't at all mean not doing things that do scale. The central idea is to not ignore the things that don't scale.
They are essential. And usually these are forgotten during the hustle and bustle of growth.
The wisdom of things that don’t scale
Coming back to the wisdom of doing things that don't scale. There are so many things
Building a team, building processes.
Understanding your product and using it.
Talking to customers.
Reading feedback and tickets left by users.
Understanding your field and concepts in it.
Building an ops machinery for your team.
Having non-task talks with your team.
Living the process of doing all of this.
Some resources-
📜 The Paul Graham article, in case you wanna read
🛤️ A a crowdsourced collection of unscalable startup hacks and stories