Paul Graham in Do Things that Don’t Scale:
The most common unscalable thing founders have to do at the start is to recruit users manually. Nearly all startups have to. You can’t wait for users to come to you. You have to go out and get them.
The entire piece by Graham is a must-read for people starting out with a new product or service however, right now, this is exactly what we’re focused on with Barley. We’re holding every single hand that comes through the door. It doesn’t scale. It makes for some late nights. But perhaps it will pay off. We hope.