创业与商业paulgraham.com编辑精选
做那些不可规模化的事
Do Things that Don't Scale
2013 — 2025，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这是 Paul Graham 2013 年的经典创业文章《Do Things that Don't Scale》。核心观点是：早期创业公司不该急着规模化，而要亲自做那些不可规模化的事——手动招募用户、提供超出预期的一对一客服、主动上门接触客户。只有先把一小撮用户服务到极致、达到临界规模，之后才谈得上规模化增长。
为什么经久不衰：它把反直觉的冷启动常识讲得最清楚：几乎所有新产品早期都靠不可规模化的人工投入起步，十多年后仍是创业者反复重读的行动指南。
HN 评论精选
从 subreddit 到小网站，几乎所有新项目冷启动都靠不可规模化的人工投入。
我在创建 r/LSAT 子版块时在很小的规模上体会过这点：花两周写优质侧边栏文章、亲自回复每条帖子和评论、手动招募任何提到 LSAT 的人、联系相关版主换链接。幸好 subreddit 启动成本小，两周后它就自我维持并涨到 1500 订阅。我新上线的网站（lsathacks.com，免费 LSAT 讲解）又在经历同样的事：初期反馈很好，但只是告诉别人并没带来流量，还得手动去招募。我的意思是，这不只适用于高增长创业公司，几乎任何新事物都需要初期不可规模化的努力。
graeme查看英文原文
I saw this on a miniature scale when I created a new subreddit (http://reddit.com/r/LSAT) I spent about two weeks creating quality articles for the sidebar, personally replying to every submission/comment, manually recruiting anyone who mentioned the LSAT, and reaching out to moderators of related subreddits for links. Mercifully, a subreddit is a small thing to launch, and after two weeks the place became self-sustaining and grew to 1500 subscribers. I'm seeing the same thing again with a website I just launched (http://lsathacks.com), which has free LSAT explanations. Very positive initial comments, but just letting people know about it hasn't resulted in a surge of traffic. Instead, I'm going to have to manually recruit people. Only then will I know if it's worthwhile. My point is that this doesn't apply just to high growth startups. Almost anything new requires initial unscaleable effort. Edit: The LSAT is the Law School Admission Test, a logic test required for admission to North American law schools.
反例：一味追求规模化、压制不可规模化的做法，最终导致产品失败。
这让我非常沮丧。我在一家 YC 创业公司工作（名字不说），我们做法和这篇文章完全相反：极度关注规模化，压制任何不可规模化的想法，一切自动化。我是工程师，但明白出色客服的重要性。做 iPhone 应用时我建议用户在整个购买和售后流程都能方便打到我们的热线，创始人拒绝了，理由是“人们会不停地打来”。我们还花大量时间在上线前把设计打磨到完美，并搞大型媒体发布，却鄙视任何手动获客。6 个月后，那个产品失败了。
guynamedloren查看英文原文
This bums me out. Majorly. I work at a YC startup (which will remain nameless), and we function exactly the opposite of how this essay suggests. We aren't huge by any means, but we focus heavily on scale, and suppress ideas that do not scale. Automate everything. Nothing should be manual. I'm an engineer, but I recognize the importance of fantastic customer service. While building an iPhone app, I suggested that users should have easy access to our hotline at every step of the purchase and post-purchase flow in case they ran into issues. The founder rejected this. Why? "People would be calling us constantly". We also spent enormous amounts of time and resources tweaking the app design to perfection (pre-launch), and attempted a massive press launch with exclusive blog posts/coverage while turning our noses at any sort of manual user acquisition. Fast forward 6 months. That product failed.
eBay 早期上门拜访、把意见领袖请到总部，这种不可规模化的投入回报巨大。
《The Perfect Store》讲 eBay 的早期岁月。对我最大的启发是他们特意跑遍全美的跳蚤市场、旧货集市和车库拍卖（尤其是乡村地区）去和人交谈，找出关键意见领袖，把很多人飞到加州给予 VIP 待遇。这些人回社区后成了真正的信徒，鼓励自己的圈子加入。15 年后这笔投资回报超出所有人预期。不过我猜很多创始人愿意上路，只是不知道从哪开始、怎么做。
peteforde查看英文原文
"The Perfect Store" is a book about the early days of eBay. The primary takeaway for me was how they deliberately went to swap meets, flea markets and garage sales all over America — especially the rural flyover states — and talked to people. They identified the key influencers and flew many of them to California to be given VIP treatment. Those folks returned to their communities as true believers and encouraged their flock to get on the train. 15 years later that investment paid off more than any of them could have hoped. That said, I suspect that there are many founders who would be open to taking the show on the road. It's incredibly daunting to know what that looks like, or where to start. I feel like it's not laziness, just unknowable to people used to tech communities and test suites. To that end, my friend Ted and I think we've figured out how to help these founders take the leap and get in front of real people. Those people might be clients, developers or community leaders. If you're interested in what we're doing, let me know. I'm happy to answer any questions you have, here. And if you need help with hard problems, you should definitely call Ted: http://usistwo.com/
让开发者轮值客服，用超出预期的人工支持取悦早期用户。
你不仅要在获取用户上采取非常手段，也要在让他们满意上采取非常手段。这是我在 Cloudkick 工作时学到的最有价值的东西。就像每个海军陆战队员都是步枪手，我认为每个开发者都该做技术支持，这是取悦用户的极简方式。很多客户不知道你的公司有多小，他们期待 Comcast 式的体验：听等待音乐、被踢皮球、反复回答同样的问题。而对你的用户来说，就像打给 Comcast 结果一个固件开发者接了电话。这种支持在大公司不可能实现，它让用户无比开心，很多人会公开称赞你并告诉朋友。
ggreer查看英文原文
You should take extraordinary measures not just to acquire users, but also to make them happy. I'd like to elaborate on this point, because it's probably the most valuable thing I learned while working at Cloudkick. Similar to how every Marine is a rifleman, I think every developer should be tech support[1]. It's an incredibly easy way to please users. Many customers don't realize how small your company is. They expect an experience similar to Comcast or Verizon: Listening to on-hold muzak interrupted by advertisements. Forced to enter obscure info such as an account number on a billing statement. Getting handed between people in various departments, each time repeating answers to the same set of questions. To your users, it's as if they called Comcast and a cable modem firmware developer picked up the phone. Could you imagine how much you would love Comcast if that happened to you? You'd still love it if the person said, "Oh sorry, that's a bug in our firmware. We'll probably have it fixed by tomorrow. I'll contact you with an update then." That sort of support is impossible in a larger company. It makes your users outrageously happy. Many of them will praise you publicly and tell their friends how great you are. 1. Modulo standard disclaimers, working at a small startup, etc. I also think everyone should be in the on-call rotation, but that's another can of worms.
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