Video · 50 min

Stanley Tang (DoorDash): Scaling the Unscalable

Stanley Tang · Stanford eCorner Free Beginner

Stanley Tang (DoorDash): Scaling the Unscalable

DoorDash started as a one-page site, a Google Voice number, and the founders personally driving the deliveries, and Stanley Tang tells that whole story here. You see how they tested demand with almost no product, learned the business by doing every job themselves, and only automated once they understood it cold. It is a founder walking you through exactly what doing things that don't scale looked like day to day.

  • They validated demand with a simple landing page before building anything real.
  • The founders were the drivers and support team, which taught them the whole system.
  • Software came after the manual process proved people actually wanted it.
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It answers 2 questions

  1. Isn't doing things that don't scale a waste of time, shouldn't I automate from day one?
  2. Everyone says do things that don't scale, but where's the line between that and just wasting weeks doing manual work?

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