Doing things that Don't Scale? 😳
I understand what this sentence means, but I don't know any real world examples of how I could actually apply this to my Saas business, Spread:
Any of you guys had any previous success with things that don't scale, and how did you do it?
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The sentence is applicable to so many things when building a new SaaS business. As others already suggested, it might revolve around very involved sales and marketing tactics. It's basically all of those things that take a lot of your time. Here are a couple that come to mind:
However, it also is a good mantra to keep in mind while building the actual product. Here are a few ideas:
It also applies to tools/services you buy:
Ultimately, it's a lot about choosing the "good enough" path that you know isn't ideal but gets the job done quickly and without spending a lot of money. Only switch to a more involved/scalable solution when it's actually needed.
Amazing reply! Thank you mate!
David
Thank you.
That was the most in-depth post that I NEEDED to hear. Thank you very much for your response.
I have saved this and will use launch begins, thank you again
The sentence is coined by Paul Graham, who used the example of the Stripe founders: normally, founders would simply ask people to join their product, but the Stripe founders would help set that person up on the spot, right then and there. Here's the original essay: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html
Essentially, all you need to do is try to manually get the first few users on board to the platform. For you, you could try working 1 on 1 with them, sorta like consulting? You want to show extreme customer support, and make their transition to the platform as easy as possible. They'll also serve as feedback, so you can refine your product.
I think the idea is genius honestly, I feel like it should help a lot of people. It reminds me a lot of Gary Vaynerchuk's reverse pyramid strategy for social media [https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/the-garyvee-content-strategy-how-to-grow-and-distribute-your-brands-social-media-content/]. If you hang around his circles on Instagram/Twitter, there's probably quite a few potential customers there already.
THIS is what I wanted to hear.
I completely agree with the on boarding approach, I think setting up accounts for users and even doing the leg work for them will be the biggest stepping stone for Spread.
After reading the article and what you wrote, I've planned to speak one to one to potential users. I'll probably repurpose some of their content for them and email them cold something like "I made you a blog" - so I'm providing huge value for them upfront... I can't see that failing hahaha
Thank you so much - you've helped me more than anyone ever hahaha !!!!
The Gary Vee content strategy is actually what my product is made for ahahah, I created it to automate that whole process pretty much - so I appreciate that greatly, I guess I've done my job of getting the message across.
If you like the idea of it, then please... sign up for a free account ;)
I feel like some people following Gary Vee would be the MOST ideal customers, however his following is quite broad. Will look into it more asap!
Thank you again, much appreciated.
One example would be to trim your product to only do one type of conversion ("We convert your Youtube videos to Podcasts, and publish them for you"), and to perform that service right now, by hand. Then you're launched.
THANK YOU. That's what I'm going to do, exactly that and just build on it
You'll be seeing me launch in a few weeks with that exact model
I needed that validation that it's okay to do that hahah
@LouTromans, the actual beautiful thing with doing it manually style is you can literally launch right now.
There's a lot of examples of this in regards to product. In order to launch your product as quick as possible you might have to skip some small non major things. These small things can be done manually, until you decide to implement them. Doing things manually doesn't scale, but since you didn't implement it, you were able to launch quicker.
One real world example is, say you want to send your users an email as soon as they sign up. You can either set up a mailing service, write some code that adds people to mailing list, and executes an email on signup. Or, you can cut that part out so you don't have to spend any time on it, and then just email people manually once users do sign up.
Thank you, I think in the beginning I may have to speak to users on an individual level as my product doesn't really exist already - and I need their feedback
I find" thank you for signing up" messages really annoying though, but thank you so much for your in-depth response!
If someone signs up for my app and actually uses it I propose a video call. That's a great way to learn what my users really need. Is this helpful?
Very helpful.
So every single user, or just the ones that use your app frequently?
Well, some create an account using a gmail account and never configure it. In my experience this type of user won't even reply to an email.
The sooner you reach out the better, so frequency is not determined yet.
Thank you for your response
If early stage - do cold outreach, if your product is low cost that doesn't scale
Later on do customer support as "CEO" that won't scale forever but being close to customers is huge.
Yeah completely agree, customer feedback is number one
I can't wait to be speaking to customers all day everyday man, im smiling thinking about it right now ahahah
What stage are you at? What do you need to achieve?
For example, doing things that don't scale could simply mean - reaching out to x amount of people manually by email to get feedback on your product. You can't scale that because you are doing it manually, but it could help you get off the ground and get your first few customers.
Im in pre launch stage - need beta sign ups
However I was trying to get answers for when I do launch, so I know exactly how to do this when it I go live
I think cold out reach via email is the most common (and effective) way of doing this from what I've seen on this thread
I have a website with free math resources.
Currently I am adding these resources myself by hand to a static yaml file. I don't even have a database.
Does it scale? No. Is the plan to give the users an options to add their own resources in the future, have a database etc.? Of course!
So why did I do it? Because I was able to launch in 2 weeks instead of 2 months to validate my idea.
I think this is a textbook example of doing a thing that does not scale.
BTW simply talking to users (which I don't do enough of) is a thing that obviously does not scale. And you HAVE TO do it.
I need to copy this method, and that's exactly what im going to do.
trim my product like @justifyles mentioned, and launch early to be able to have something physical out there ASAP