Doing Things That Do Not Scale

Doing things that do not scale means deliberately using manual, high-touch, or messy actions early because they create learning, quality, and momentum before automation is justified.

DoorDash example

Stanley Tang describes the early DoorDash experiment: a simple landing page with PDF menus, founders taking phone orders, founders doing deliveries, and direct conversations with restaurants and customers. The point was not operational elegance; it was testing whether demand existed.

Why it works

• It turns a startup idea into an experiment.
• It creates direct learning about customer pain and operational constraints.
• It lets the team launch before infrastructure exists.
• It builds early user love through founder effort.
• It avoids spending months automating the wrong workflow.

PR and getting started

The same lecture set frames PR and initial traction as founder-led work, not something to delegate too early. Early founders should create their own momentum and stories before expecting scalable channels to work.