YC Playbook · First users

Do things that don't scale: how YC founders got their first users

"Do things that don't scale" comes from Paul Graham's 2013 essay. The idea: startups don't take off on their own. In the beginning, founders have to get users one by one and serve them by hand, in ways that would never work at scale. Here's what that looked like for real YC companies, and how to apply it.

Real YC examples

YC W09

Airbnb

The founders went door to door in New York, recruiting new hosts one by one and helping existing hosts improve their listings.

Lesson: Supply doesn't appear on its own. In a marketplace, the founders often have to be the recruiting team.

Source: Paul Graham, "Do Things That Don't Scale" →

YC S09

Stripe

When someone agreed to try Stripe, the Collison brothers would say "right then, give me your laptop" and set them up on the spot. YC partners called it the "Collison installation".

Lesson: Don't wait for users to sign up later. Remove every step between "yes" and actually using the product.

Source: Paul Graham, "Do Things That Don't Scale" →

The four ideas in the essay

Recruit users manually

Startups rarely take off on their own. Most founders have to go out and get their first users one at a time, through emails, calls, visits and introductions.

Delight every early user

With ten users you can give each one more attention than a big company ever could. Use that advantage while you have it.

Do the work by hand first

Before automating, do the job yourself for a few customers. It shows you what the product actually needs to do, and some customers will pay for it.

Start with a narrow group

Pick a small, specific group you can reach and serve well, then expand. A tight market is easier to win than a broad one.

How to do it this week

  1. Write down the 20 people or companies most likely to need what you're building, and contact each one personally this week.
  2. When someone says yes, set them up yourself during the call or visit instead of sending a link.
  3. Do the part of your product that isn't built yet by hand for your first customers.
  4. Follow up with each user personally after their first week and write down what they say.
  5. Only automate a step after you've done it by hand enough times to know exactly what it should do.

For the conversations themselves, use our guide on how to talk to users.

Go deeper

See how more YC founders won their first customers

Read founder stories in their own words, or browse a free, source-linked sample of YC company decisions.

Founder stories →Free sample database →

Common questions

What does "do things that don't scale" mean?

It's advice from Paul Graham's 2013 essay: in the early days, founders should do slow, manual work (recruiting users one by one, setting them up personally, serving them by hand) that would be impossible at large scale, because that's how most startups get their first users.

Who wrote "Do Things That Don't Scale"?

Paul Graham, cofounder of Y Combinator, published it on paulgraham.com in July 2013. It is one of the most widely cited essays in YC's reading list.

What are examples of doing things that don't scale?

Airbnb's founders recruited hosts door to door in New York; Stripe's founders set up new users on their own laptops on the spot; Wufoo sent hand-written thank-you notes to users. All three are described in the essay.

When should a startup stop doing things that don't scale?

When the manual work is clearly holding back growth and you understand it well enough to automate it. Doing it by hand first is what tells you how the automated version should work.

Is doing things that don't scale the same as building an MVP?

Related but different. An MVP is a minimal product; doing things that don't scale is about how founders get and serve early users, which often means filling the gaps in a minimal product with their own effort.

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