Do Things That Don't Scale ⚖️
On Paul Graham's famous essay
blog.forty-nine // While it’s now officially been over two weeks since our new print edition of Creator Mag dropped, we still had plenty of orders to pack and ship from the studio. And as of this afternoon, the last batch is now complete.
Some more orders have trickled in since the initial run, so I guess we’re never truly done done. Speaking of which: Why make things difficult for ourselves by doing this part, instead of working with a fulfillment service? I’ll share some thoughts on that below—and yes, it has to do with the title of today’s blog.
But beforehand, I’d love to get your feedback on something. See, we’re building this thing right alongside you, dear reader. As we look ahead to our next season, what types of stories would you like more of from our team (and potential guest contributors)?
For context, we currently publish interviews on Thursdays, with original essays and behind-the-scenes stuff on Sunday evenings. I generally find this to be a solid balance—but again, open to your thoughts here.
Anyway, onto this evening’s topic. Here’s “Five Things I Think (I Think).”
— NGL
P.S. Last blog, we talked with Nolis Anderson about shooting lookbooks from Chicago to Paris—and doing stuff that keeps you humble. Read it here.
One :: I think we should do things that don’t scale. When I was in college, I gravitated towards startup and entrepreneurship-adjacent courses and literature. This came out of a desire to foster a career in media, but feeling much more drawn to early-stage ideas and outlets compared to the antediluvian traditional journalism industry.
Surprisingly, over the years, I’ve reversed course. I find my media diet consists of reading The New Yorker and GQ, of picking up books that took years to report or playing The New York Times’ games on my bus ride to the studio.
Still, if there’s one thing from the startup scripture that has stuck with me, it’s Paul Graham’s 2013 essay, “Do Things That Don’t Scale.” Graham, a computer scientist and cofounder of startup accelerator Y Combinator, writes this on his blog:
A lot of would-be founders believe that startups either take off or don't. You build something, make it available, and if you've made a better mousetrap, people beat a path to your door as promised. Or they don't, in which case the market must not exist.
Actually, startups take off because the founders make them take off.
Making a physical magazine is a long, long process. There’s reporting, writing, and design. There’s finding the right printer to work with, and ensuring the final product comes out perfect. There’s figuring out creative ways to market the thing, then fulfilling orders as they arise.
There are so, so many steps along the way where you can look around and say, You know what? This was fun, but the road ahead looks quite difficult. I’m going to hang up the cleats now.
In an effort to streamline things, one would think that fulfillment should be the first thing we offload so that we can focus more on creative. It’s stubborn at best, illogical at worst, yet packing orders ourselves—and sticking a personalized, handwritten note in each and every one—oddly feels like a necessity at this stage.
Graham writes this later on in “Do Things That Don’t Scale”:
[One reason] founders don't focus enough on individual customers is that they worry it won't scale. But when founders of larval startups worry about this, I point out that in their current state they have nothing to lose.
Maybe if they go out of their way to make existing users super happy, they'll one day have too many to do so much for. That would be a great problem to have.
I know self-fulfillment is not sustainable in the long run. I also know managing everything these last couple weeks has been an arduous task.
At the same time, it’s been a good problem to have. You know what would be an even better problem to have? Too many orders, to the point where we need to outsource fulfillment.
Two :: I think a tradeoff naturally arises when starting an indie publication. Thirty minutes before an interview last Tuesday morning, the interviewee cancelled on me.
I’ll admit that receiving that cancellation email was tough.
In the grand scheme of things, it was a blip on the radar, and I’m incredibly privileged to do what I do for a living. Yet I spent so much of my Monday focused on biz ops that my actual research for the interview didn’t kick in until late that night.
By the time I actually took the train to our meetup spot on Tuesday, I was operating on five hours of sleep. While sitting in the coffee shop where we were supposed to conduct the interview, all sorts of doubts about the independent path I’m currently on started to creep in. The same thought kept playing on repeat: I’m doing too much, aren’t I?
I wrote above about my deep respect for journalistically-rigorous work. I’d like to think that some of the stories we’re telling reach that threshold—though given the size of our team, I question our ability to tell those types of stories on a regular basis.* Major publications, of course, have teams of editors, fact-checkers, salespeople, and even lawyers that support this work.
But that’s the tradeoff, right? Pursuing the thesis and direction we want to pursue means reporting original stories and running a business ourselves, bringing in freelancers and other contributors as needed. If it was easy, more people would do it.
Besides, it ended up working out with the interviewee. We rescheduled for the next day, met up in person, and had a great conversation. The profile of this creator will be featured in our next magazine and on our YouTube channel; I believe you’ll find the story fascinating.
Three :: I think you should always have a copy of your product on your person—just in case. Following the above internal dilemma, I was grabbing lunch on Tuesday when someone walked up to the table. “Are you Nathan?” they asked.
Turns out, they’d been reading and watching our past season, and expressed their intent on both buying a zine and attending our gatherings.
I’d been delivering some orders that day, and I happened to have exactly one extra copy of the zine on me. I’m glad it found a home—and if you’re that person whom I gave it to, drop me a line. I’d love to say hi!
Four :: I think more offices should have Polaroid cameras. We got one right before the Block Party. Every time someone comes to the studio for the first time, we now make sure to snap a pic and tape it onto a dedicated pole—the Polaroid Pole, if you will.
Vicky had a conference in Denver last week, so she stopped in Chicago for forty-eight hours on the way back to Geneva.** And yes, the above photo is now on the Polaroid Pole. Thems the rules.
Five :: I think Bon Iver’s new album is proof that evolution as an artist is a beautiful thing. The pride of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Justin Vernon is probably your favorite musician’s favorite musician.
He’s created instant classics with the likes of Taylor Swift, a (sighs) pre-crazy Kanye West, and more. There’s something special about the Bon Iver front man’s woodsy Midwestern mythos, and while his near-genreless catalogue can be hard to pin down, a common thread has tied most of his projects together—an inescapable loneliness.
Throw that out the window with Vernon’s latest record, SABLE, fABLE. Across thirteen tracks, the artist capitulates to a new feeling: joy. Call the album folk, call it R&B, call it country; whatever label you throw at it, just know your ears are in for a delightful ride upon pressing play.
“Day One” (featuring Dijon and Flock of Dimes) was on repeat for me all weekend. The fact that Vernon can disappear into the woods for years—then return with a completely new sound, and evoke completely new feelings—is a joy unto itself.
Thanks for reading! Shoot us a reply, comment, or DM if anything resonated with you in particular—we respond to them all.
* At least, more regular than quarterly.
** If you’re new here: Vicky and I were living together in Los Angeles last year…until she got a job in Geneva, Switzerland. Making time to see each other these days is tough, though I’m actually visiting her on Wednesday. My next blog will therefore be coming to you from across the pond!