Another argument: I think that startup folk wisdom is pretty big on focus. (E.g. start with a small target audience, give each person one clear goal). I think it’s roughly “only start doing new things when you’re acing your old things”. But maybe startup folk wisdom is wrong, or maybe I’m wrong about what startup folk wisdom says.
I also think most (maybe basically all?) startups that got big started by doing one smaller thing well (e.g. Google did search, Amazon did books, Apple did computers, Microsoft did operating systems). Again, I think this was something like “only start new products when your old products are doing really well” (“really well” is a bit vague: e.g. Amazon’s distribution systems were still a mess when they expanded into CDs/toys, but they were selling a lot of books).
Having been in the startup scene, wisdom there is a bit of a mess.
It’s clear that the main goal of early startups is to identify “product market fit”, which to me seems like, “an opportunity that’s exciting enough to spend effort scaling”.
Startups “pivot” all the time. (See The Lean Startup, though I assume you’re familiar)
Startups also experiment with a bunch of small features, listen to what users want, and ideally choose some to focus on. For instance, Instagram started with a general-purpose app; from this they found out that users just really liked the photo feature, so they removed the other stuff and just focussed on that. AirBnB started out in many cities, but later were encouraged to focus on one; but in part because of their expertise (I imagine) they were able to make a good decision.
It’s a known bug for startups to scale before “product market fit”, or scale poorly (bad hires), both of which are quite bad.
However, it’s definitely the intention of basically all startups to eventually get to the point where they have an exciting and scalable opportunity, and then to expand.
Yeah, agree that experimentation and listening to customers is good. I mostly think this is a different dimension from things like “expand into a new area”, although maybe the distinction is a bit fuzzy.
I also agree that aiming to find scaleable things is a great model.
I do think of CEA as looking for things that can scale (e.g. I think Forum, groups, and EAGx could all be scaled relatively well once we work out the models) (but we also do things that don’t scale, which I think is appropriate while we’re still searching for a really strong product-market fit).
(Edited to add: below I make a difference between scaling programs and scaling staff numbers. My sense is that startups’ first goal is to find a scalable business model/program, and that only after that should they focus on being able to scale staff numbers to capitalize on the opportunity.)
Happy to hear you’re looking for things that could scale, I’d personally be particularly excited about those opportunities.
I’d guess that internet-style things could scale particularly well; like the Forum / EA Funds / online models, etc, but that’s also my internet background talking :). In particular, things could be different if it makes sense to focus on a very narrow but elite group.
I agree that a group should scale staff only after finding a scalable opportunity.
Another argument: I think that startup folk wisdom is pretty big on focus. (E.g. start with a small target audience, give each person one clear goal). I think it’s roughly “only start doing new things when you’re acing your old things”. But maybe startup folk wisdom is wrong, or maybe I’m wrong about what startup folk wisdom says.
I also think most (maybe basically all?) startups that got big started by doing one smaller thing well (e.g. Google did search, Amazon did books, Apple did computers, Microsoft did operating systems). Again, I think this was something like “only start new products when your old products are doing really well” (“really well” is a bit vague: e.g. Amazon’s distribution systems were still a mess when they expanded into CDs/toys, but they were selling a lot of books).
Having been in the startup scene, wisdom there is a bit of a mess.
It’s clear that the main goal of early startups is to identify “product market fit”, which to me seems like, “an opportunity that’s exciting enough to spend effort scaling”.
Startups “pivot” all the time. (See The Lean Startup, though I assume you’re familiar)
Startups also experiment with a bunch of small features, listen to what users want, and ideally choose some to focus on. For instance, Instagram started with a general-purpose app; from this they found out that users just really liked the photo feature, so they removed the other stuff and just focussed on that. AirBnB started out in many cities, but later were encouraged to focus on one; but in part because of their expertise (I imagine) they were able to make a good decision.
It’s a known bug for startups to scale before “product market fit”, or scale poorly (bad hires), both of which are quite bad.
However, it’s definitely the intention of basically all startups to eventually get to the point where they have an exciting and scalable opportunity, and then to expand.
Yeah, agree that experimentation and listening to customers is good. I mostly think this is a different dimension from things like “expand into a new area”, although maybe the distinction is a bit fuzzy.
I also agree that aiming to find scaleable things is a great model.
I do think of CEA as looking for things that can scale (e.g. I think Forum, groups, and EAGx could all be scaled relatively well once we work out the models) (but we also do things that don’t scale, which I think is appropriate while we’re still searching for a really strong product-market fit).
(Edited to add: below I make a difference between scaling programs and scaling staff numbers. My sense is that startups’ first goal is to find a scalable business model/program, and that only after that should they focus on being able to scale staff numbers to capitalize on the opportunity.)
Happy to hear you’re looking for things that could scale, I’d personally be particularly excited about those opportunities.
I’d guess that internet-style things could scale particularly well; like the Forum / EA Funds / online models, etc, but that’s also my internet background talking :). In particular, things could be different if it makes sense to focus on a very narrow but elite group.
I agree that a group should scale staff only after finding a scalable opportunity.