Power of Manual Work 🪚💪

How Startups Use Non-Scalable Tasks to Find Their Way. Your regular intake of dev randomness! [Codeanywhere](%2F%2Fwww.codeanywhere.com%2F%3Futm_medium=email%26utm_source=newsletter%26utm_campaign=HT/1/0101018b6bd5d33b-0a6e7814-6c61-462c-92f0-14334e846e30-000000/d2h0zuNq8UGfjel96G2hKYH8F2g=346) ISSUE #74 Hello fellow enthusiasts, Today we're spotlighting the underrated magic of doing things manually - a strategy that the most innovative startups swear by in their early days. Our springboard is a recent Hacker News [discussion](%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com%2Fitem%3Fid=38010992%26utm_medium=email%26utm_source=newsletter%26utm_campaign=HT/1/0101018b6bd5d33b-0a6e7814-6c61-462c-92f0-14334e846e30-000000/rO6M9N4CtOpimeeytSsq7EQQyPU=346) sharing real-world examples of startups employing this "non-scalable" approach to great effect: - Stripe's founders manually onboarded users one-by-one in the beginning. This allowed them to gather invaluable customer insights and tailor the onboarding experience. - Doordash's founders delivered food orders themselves initially. By being in the trenches, they could intimately understand pain points and streamline operations. - Reddit's founders bootstrapped the discussion by posting content under different usernames. They kickstarted community engagement by simulating real conversations. 🤷‍♂ Some more ideas: - Other startups offered white-glove setup and support for each customer individually. This high-touch process built loyalty and trust. - Startups conducted sales and marketing outreach directly to potential users. Personal Relationships created evangelists. - Teams built initial product versions completely manually before ever automating. They felt real pain points to drive the right solutions. The key takeaway - embracing manual work early on helps startups deeply understand their customers, products, and markets. This learning is impossible to gather through automation and abstraction. Hands-on work also builds relationships and trust at an individual level. These emotional connections turn one-time users into loyal evangelists. We all know the temptation as engineers is to optimize and scale too soon. But the most successful startups delay gratification and get creative. They channel their inner bootstrapper, keep it simple initially, and execute manually when needed. Once product-market fit and traction are validated through manual approaches, they thoughtfully determine which processes to scale up. So don't fear manual tasks! The humility, hustle, and grit required will pay dividends. Here are some tips to maximize the value of non-scalable work: - Talk to every early user - Learn their pain points and build personal connections - Deliver one-to-one support - Provide white-glove setup, training and troubleshooting - Handle sales and marketing manually - Direct outreach creates lasting bonds - Dogfood your product - Use it extensively so you feel the real pains - Build relationships with individuals - Turn them into evangelists through care and delight Let us know - what non-scalable strategies have you tried at your startup? Share your stories and advice by hitting reply. Wishing you huge success! Till Thursday %2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fnibalic%3Futm_medium=email%26utm_source=newsletter%26utm_campaign=HT/1/0101018b6bd5d33b-0a6e7814-6c61-462c-92f0-14334e846e30-000000/6qe_UF75NPtciavZoZwiLumPEmw=346 Niko - Codeanywhere team Your cheerful email friend Around the Web [24 Open-Source Projects for Developers in 2023](%2F%2Fdev.to%2Fmadza%2F24-open-source-projects-for-developers-in-2023-391l%3Futm_medium=email%26utm_source=newsletter%26utm_campaign=HT/1/0101018b6bd5d33b-0a6e7814-6c61-462c-92f0-14334e846e30-000000/Fk9eDvZ7zPTRlMambZkGZY-USZw=346) Discover a curated collection of 24 open-source projects showcasing innovation, collaboration, and creativity in the developer community. Explore various interests and technologies to find the right tool for your needs. 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