Would You Rather Have Obama O’s or Cap’n McCain’s?

Well… you don’t get to choose anymore, but at one point Airbnb Founders were staring at $30 grand in profit after thinking of the idea to climb out of early debt!

Of course, this wasn’t their end-all goal. They weren’t planning to hand glue 1000 boxes of politically themed cereal shut forever.

To scale Airbnb, the founders first had to get creative with their offerings. They found ways to make things work, like the cereal and renting their own rooms out, to put their plans into action.

A lot of people tend to want to create something big and scalable right away — understandable! Though, putting in the grunt work of getting face to face with your customers and doing things yourself will give you valuable insight.

If nobody likes the product to start with, you’ll never scale!

One of the most common types of advice we give at Y Combinator is to do things that don’t scale. — Paul Graham

The same idea is true for learning new activities and taking on challenges.

Let’s say your goal is to make $10000/month writing.

The strategy, effort, and skill at $10000 are a lot different from $10.

You’d probably have to write… I’m not sure… but a lot of content for that $10000, and have a significant following for your mass creation efforts to be seen.

So, if you started with that strategy, you’d likely burn out your resources pretty quickly.

You’re trying to get good at it, not just simply do it. Maggie Butler

Start putting in the time daily to read writing tips, connect, analyze headlines, and study engagement and you’ll probably succeed. You’ll slowly build up an audience of dedicated followers.

It’s not to say you’ll never have to do those ten-dollar tasks when you’re a seasoned writer (Airbnb still does creative marketing!) but you’ll have a solid, scalable foundation.

Start small and get creative!