[nwsm]

You're thinking about scale in a different sense.

> You can do things that don't scale to accelerate a good idea, but by definition you actually can't do that if the idea itself requires scale. The idea has to work on day 1, for customer 1.

He's talking about ideas that only work if the company has scaled to some non-trivial size of users or some other relevant factor. Uber would be an example. How could Uber work if there was only 1 customer? There would be no drivers.

If you need to "do things that don't scale" to launch your idea, your idea probably also needs to work with low scale of users/revenue/investment or you will be dead in the water.

[whyhow]

Wouldn't you call that a network effect? Uber is only effective if you build up a network of customers.

I thought scale meant you could run your service for 1 million users just as easily as you can run it for 1,000 users.

[nwsm]

Yes I'd call it a network effect, and the author does as well later in the article. The point is that the network effect is required for the idea to work. It doesn't have to be a network effect though. Other examples he gives:

> Third, how synchronous and mission critical is it? Be skeptical if it going down would cause interruption to workflows that couldn't be worked around or deferred. Be incredibly skeptical if this is true round the clock and on weekends. That kind of service level implies significant and robust automation and support, which require scale.

> Fourth, how much does the business model depend on volume? Losing a bit of money on first customers as you bootstrap and learn is not an issue. Be skeptical, though, if this would need to be sustained to bootstrap your way to some required volume which is quite a way beyond those first few customers.

Generally I also think of technical scale first, but I think using it more generally here is valid.