Having 100 people who love your product is far more valuable than having a million who just kind of like it.
According to Jade Makhsoos News Agency, many of the world’s greatest scalability stories started with a tiny core of passionate fans—often no more than 100—whose enthusiasm bordered on obsession. These are the people who eagerly await every product update and can’t imagine how they ever lived without your product.
This principle applies to nearly every successful global product. No amount of money or marketing expertise can sustain long-term growth on its own. You need more than your customers’ attention—you need their unwavering devotion. And this creates a kind of Zen-like paradox for entrepreneurs: the first step toward scalability is to stop obsessing over scalability. Focus instead on making a few people genuinely happy.
There are no shortcuts. You can’t simply spend enough money to solve this problem, and you can’t trick people into loving your brand. You have to earn it. That’s how we grew our brand—through word of mouth. In fact, we didn’t even start doing marketing until last year.
The easier path to scaling is when you’ve truly nailed the product—when you’ve created something people love so much they instinctively want to share it. This kind of growth happens organically as users bring in other users. The harder path is when you’ve only built something “good enough,” a product people somewhat like and will use, but not one they’ll stick with—or share.
I think the key is to ignore the noise and simply say: “I have a high-level conviction, and we’re going to try this.” Most people will tell you it won’t work—especially if it’s something new. People tend to fear the new. But often, it’s not nearly as risky as it seems. It won’t destroy your company, and if everyone else thinks it’s foolish, that probably means it’s undervalued. That’s how we managed to pull it off, starting with expanding YC into all these different directions.
I believe the greatest companies are built on the edge of what people are willing to try.
We’d love to hear your thoughts.