Learned the hard way, do things that don't scale

[shadowlife]

I spent 8 months (nights & weekends) along my full time job working on a side project, with a goal to quit my job to go all in.

My friend and I quickly built an MVP and went on to try and sell it.

- We did user interviews (and read the Mom Test) and "validated" our idea

- We sent 1,000s of cold emails

- Reached out to everyone in my network

$0 in sales, and only dozens in free trials

For context, the app was automating writing performance review packets to help people get promoted faster / know where they stand. We know it's a problem but realized we were forcing software onto the solution.

Last week I posted on LinkedIn that I was selling 5 coaching slots to help people get promoted for $50/ea and it sold out in less than 48 hours.

Then it hit me that's what they mean by do things that don't scale. Solve the problem in ways that don't scale!! I was only applying that rule to things like networking, marketing and selling. A great example is the Doordash founders literally being delivery drivers for their first customers.

So, my friend and I are taking a step back and just solving the problem in ways that don't scale (coaching) until we learn more about the problem and reach a bottleneck.

Anyway, just wanted to share my learnings! If you're like me you've watched every YC video, read every startup book, and listened to every podcast. Even with all that knowledge sometimes stuff doesn't really hit you until you actually are in the weeds (and not making money ). Keep at it!

 

[demarcus507]

@shadowlife A lot of YC videos need you to critically think more about them, and not take at face value. I also spent too much time taking YC advice as gospel and not critically thinking about how to apply it to my own situation.

They aren't saying solve the problem in a way that doesn't scale. Just don't spend a lot of time investing in a system until you know it will work. You still probably want to solve the problem with software.

Often YC is preaching to software engineers that come from larger companies where all software needs to be scalable. It takes a lot of time to do that (usually 10x the time). Startups don't have the time, and aren't as validated as late stage companies are to know they can invest that time.

Startups still need to solve problems in ways that CAN scale.

Looking at the doordash example: they still had an app. They were driving themselves first because it's less investment. Doordash didn't just take work as pizza delivery drivers.

Coaching can help you learn about the problem - this is really great. All for this. But it is not validating a solution that is startup backable. If you can automate your coaching in a way that's scalable, then that's a startup.

My space is language learning.

No one is going to invest in me if I just teach language learning classes - scaling would be expensive, with me having to train and hire people at an equal rate as I bring on new customers. So using that as my product and pitch makes no sense. Teaching language (and learning it) though gave me valuable insights into the problem space and what users want.

I still had to build an app.

 

[missguidedsheep]

@demarcus507 Agreed.

They forget that they and silicon valley in general heavily encourages highly scalable business ideas.

I think the majority of people would see "doing things that don't scale" as intuitive - without the fever of recreating the highly scalable unicorn "profitability comes later" business model - if they're simply trying to build a profitable business capable of growth.

The information is invaluable but it has the same risks as any metagame think - and complex-sounding descriptions of simple ideas designed to unthink that metagame is indicative.

 

[shadowlife]

@demarcus507 Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I worry about that too, I don't want this coaching thing to become an agency or to rely on people to scale.

I think it'll be good for learning, with coaching I think it'll help me notice patterns and what can be done with software to remove me from the situation. I definitely don't wanna fall into the trap of turning my time into money.

Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

[hdlewallen]

@shadowlife Forget about focusing on scalling anything untill you do enough customer interviews to understand what problem you are solving and to develop a valuable insight to help you craft a compelling offer/MVP.

Once you achieve some level of product market fit, you will need to figure out how to scale but focusing on scaling before your startup idea is validated would be a mistake.

 

[kmack7]

@demarcus507 Doordash hardly had anything, they were using apple friends tracker to track people. They just had static menus on website and they were taking orders on their own phones and placing orders manually to restaurants. And they would drive to deliver. It should definitely be done in a non scalable way

 

[demarcus507]

@kmack7 That's pretty good, and definitely scalable eventually.

"non scalable way now that's low investment and can be scaled later" doesn't mean "can never scale" which I think was his problem thinking here.

 

[dither]

@shadowlife Congratulations on it only taking you 8 months to figure out (seriously). There are some people it takes them years to figure such a thing out. At the cost of money that they will never get back... and even more preciously.. time that they will not get back either.

Congrats. Get back to building something people want!

 

[revena]

@shadowlife This will hurt you at the core.. but honestly the reality in my honest opinion.. your idea was a perfect example of tarpit idea.. I cannot think of something more useless than what you were proposing

Sorry I know it hurts to put things out blatantly but just my opinion.. I wish to put it there as it's good to have other people's prospective and I wished to do it in a respectful way even though the words may not reflect that.

So IF my opinion is correct, I really don't think you can use your example to justify doing things that don't scale.

I've built SaaS platform and when I used Google ads (all by myself for the very first time in my life), I was getting conversions with only 2 bucks per conversion.. compare that to 10-50 bucks per conversion as industry average.

Why? Because were actively searching on Google how to solve that problem!!! As easy as it can be.. you solve the problem a group of people are desperately looking for a solution to.. then just a bit of marketing could do wonders.

If you build a solution to controlling forest fires in the extreme heat wave, people will come running to you with all their money. But if you build a solution to measure the harmful effects of heatwave and use chatgpt to summarize that.. very innovative but not useful

Go ahead and down vote me if this hurts

 

[masako]

@revena

your idea was a perfect example of tarpit idea.. I cannot think of something more useless than what you were proposing

That's not what "tarpit idea" means. For something to be a tarpit, it must actually sound appealing and interesting at first glance (which you clearly don't think this is).

To OP, I also think the original idea you have is bad. But, I think that by engaging with potential users and figuring out what their pain points are, you might stumble on something in this space that is worth working on.

And the core premise makes total sense: people want to be better at their jobs and grow and get paid more, and companies want employees who generate increasing value to the company.

 

[revena]

@masako Thanks.. Well to be honest I don't really remember what tarpit idea means

I'll get a perfect zero in any test based on yc startup school stuffs.. I forgot them a few days after watching..

Agree with your advice to the op.

 

[shadowlife]

@revena I'm open to all feedback!

I've struggled a lot with wondering if this is a tarpit idea too, so it's good to know whether or not other people think the same.

Thanks for sharing your experience

 

[daveo]

@revena None of this was constructive or helpful, just tearing down.

 

[revena]

@daveo Tearing down is what I ask my friends as well as strangers to do.. whenever I ask their feedback they all start by saying nice things which actually is not helpful.

If you don't find this tearing down constructive, and pretty content with only positive feedback from friends,, great. Hope things work out for you otherwise when you open to the general public, they will tear down real hard. They won't be nice, they are not your friends!

 

[micky123]

@shadowlife The whole coaching thing is nonsense. Do you think Travis Kalanick was driving a taxi cab around looking for passengers? Congrats, you just inventing doing a side hustle.

Your actual software idea, throw it in the bin. Nobody wants to do their performance review and everyone wants their promotion so in theory your pitch makes sense but you are selling to the wrong person. Most people don’t have the ability to give access to company resources such as slack, github, asana, etc. nor does anyone want to go and set all that shit up. It would honestly be faster to just write the self reflection.

You would have to sell into HR, which has almost the same problem.

I can solve the problem without using any software at all. Companies just need to stop forcing people to compile bullshit packets that Literally nobody reads. Their own manager barely skims it. Just stop the bullshit, problem solved.

 

[bougti]

@shadowlife Is cold emailing still a thing? Even CRMs now are putting strict rules for contacting people who didn't consent to receive an email, so how do you get around that without having hard bounces or being suspended?

 

[masterbuilder1769]

@shadowlife It took me two failed startups and ~3 years to learn this well enough, and now the thing I'm doing that doesn't scale is running a 1:1 consultancy/advisory circuit while also working a full time job.

There's a lot of high-quality learning to be gained from open ended deep dive conversations without the overhead of 'startup' to think about. People are generally a lot more willing to be open.

 

[itsdemtitans]

@shadowlife Yall have one of my favorite ideas I’ve ever seen on this subreddit. Keep pushing!

 

[starlightviolet199]

@shadowlife btw for this

"We sent 1,000s of cold emails

Reached out to everyone in my network"

cold emails are the worst! all these shitty softwares which exists for 1000 cold emails are just there to make them money... even if people had some intention to buy from you ... the moment the cold email hits in the inbox you are screwed.

reached out to everyone in my network....

This i guess is solid approach but sometimes people wont buy just cause its you. it means you didnt have a strong network to begin with

There are really shitty products in the market out there but doing great or sustaining, only because they have been marketed and sold them quite nicely.

now your example of door dash is nice, but not everyone wants to become the next door dash

remember wework anyone?

 

[acacia_mosaic]

@shadowlife If you want to actually validate the idea, don’t go to your user asking what their pain is.
Ask them what their pleasure in doing what the way they are currently doing things.

When you ask about pain, your solution might not be always fitting to recurrent usage, but when you ask them About their pleasure of repeated usage, your priorities of building a product will altogether change.

Condoms sell more than contraceptives.
Coffee, cigarette, alcohol, perfume and be it any large business around you - they all sustain survive by giving you the pain of using it.