I've noticed lots of articles where people give the same advice: Don't worry if your plan isn't scalable at first.
Is this really a problem? Do that many founders throw out an idea because it won't scale?
Is this really a problem? Do that many founders throw out an idea because it won't scale?
The idea is that you need to do some serious legwork, and involve high-touch, high-response tactics to nurture and cultivate your early userbase. You're tending to every plant in the garden, personally, by hand. That's not a scalable process, but it can be necessary before being able to transition into scale mode.
This advice is offered in opposition to the "build it and they will come" approach, in which you build a product, throw in a few theoretical viral loops and growth-hack mechanics, maybe go for a bit of PR pickup, and then assume the product will achieve scale on its own.
A lot of growth plots don't start off linear or exponential. They start off with a few staircases.
We like to believe that once we launch and get a handful of users, the viral effect will take place and bada-bing bada-boom we will have a million users. Movies like social network make it look like Facebook reached its first million users drinking and coding 24/7 (I still love that movie) - but the truth is that you have to put the effort in building relationships with your users and there is no scalable way to do that.
I feel the same way applying for jobs.
I think the sentiment you're referring to is mostly "my idea scales but my prototype doesn't - I can't ship before my prototype scales!" and commenters saying don't let that stop you. That's definitely a mental hurdle to get over but a much more fixable problem.