Avoid Premature Optimizations
- Premature optimization refers to optimizing a software system's performance or resource usage too early in development before the system's requirements and design are fully understood.
- It is generally considered a poor software engineering practice.
- The term "premature optimization" was popularized by Donald Knuth, a renowned computer scientist, who famously said, "Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming."
- The main idea is to prioritize writing working code first and then optimize the performance once the system is functional and its bottlenecks are identified.
- This approach ensures that development resources are spent effectively and that optimizations are made where they will have the most significant impact.
Do Things that Don't Scale
- In the early stages of a startup, founders must engage in activities that don't scale to gain traction, understand their users, and provide personalized service.
- Successful startups like Stripe and Airbnb have adopted hands-on approaches, such as recruiting users manually and focusing on small-scale growth.
- This enables them to gain valuable insights, improve their product, and establish credibility.
- Though these efforts may not scale, they help establish a core group of satisfied users, ultimately contributing to long-term success.
- As the startup grows, the lessons learned during these early stages become integral to the company's culture and approach to customer service.
- Thus, founders should be bold in doing unscalable things initially to secure rapid growth and success later on.