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Do Things that Don't Scale (Tyler's Version)

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It was made famous by one of Paul Graham’s legendary essays that he published back in 2013. I highly recommend giving it a read if you haven’t before. But if you’re too lazy to read it, I’ll attempt to summarize it in my own words… From the outside looking in, people view successful companies as large, optimized entities that acquire customers at scale, provide value, and spit out revenue. They speak in units of millions (or billions)... so individual users don’t really matter at that scale. They’re all abstracted into some larger equation where the conversion rate is X%, the CAC:LTV is Y, and monthly churn rate is Z%. That’s just what a scaled business is. As a startup founder, you could identify a potential user and shoot them a cold email or reply to their tweet. There’s a chance they might respond positively and be willing to jump on a call with you. But that’s a whole lot of effort for just a single user. If you spent that much time and effort just to acquire a single user… best c

Do Things that Don't Scale (Tyler's Version) Home Posts Do Things that Don't Scale (Tyler's Version) Do Things that Don't Scale (Tyler's Version) Worth it, but so glad I don't do that anymore... Tyler Denk Feb 13, 2024 • 11 min read Most people are familiar with the common startup adage, “do things that don’t scale.” It was made famous by one of Paul Graham’s legendary essays that he published back in 2013. I highly recommend giving it a read if you haven’t before. But if you’re too lazy to read it, I’ll attempt to summarize it in my own words… From the outside looking in, people view successf

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