Small before big

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/07/small-before-bi.html

by dawie • 19 years ago

6 12 19 years ago

sethgodin.typepad.com

startupper2• 19 years ago

Extrapolating these little nuggets of wisdom to every situation is meaningless. For instance it simply does not apply to a startup that is looking to build something complex. And in that case you absolutely need to scale before someone else does and pushes you out of the game. Small before big does not make sense, unless small is a meaningful and reasonable number.

nostrademons5• 19 years ago

I thought that Godin's point was that you need to make something one person will want before you can make something lots of people will want. If you don't have a useful product, it doesn't matter how much advertising or PR or scalability you throw at it, nobody will use it.

You need to scale before others push you out of the game, true; but before you need to scale, you need to have something worth scaling. A complex system that does everything for everybody and can stand up to a million users isn't worth anything until somebody finds it useful.

koolmoe4• 19 years ago

There are many counterexamples to Godin's point, such as wikis. Wikis are useless with few contributors but extremely useful with many.

A secondary advantage (mentioned in pg's essays) is that you can more effectively take a "constant beta" mentality. Rolling a web app out to many users can certainly speed up the process of detecting bugs versus rolling it out to a few.

startupper2• 19 years ago

"and can stand up to a million users isn't worth anything until somebody finds it useful."

Often times it takes a team and not an individual to build something somebody wants. The complexity lies in its functionality and it does not have to do everything for everybody.

If I am not mistaken you are referring to scaling production and marketing and possibly premature diversification while I am referring to scaling development to meet the needs of that initial customer base.

staunch• 19 years ago

Just like focusing on a tiny idea is immensely difficult (and powerful), so is trying to focus on a few users. The temptation in both cases is to hedge your bets by concentrating on more.

This applies perfectly to my soon-to-launch project. My partner and I have made a conscious decision to shut ourselves up about taking over the world and just concentrate on getting a few core users that are in love with our product. Stage 1.

Small before big

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