Thanks to the boar book (a.k.a. DDIA), system design interviews, and high-load conference talks, passionate engineers often develop tunnel vision: scaling is everything. If your service can’t handle a million concurrent users out of the gate, the architecture is presumably broken — time to rewrite everything in Rust and start from scratch.
Here’s the reality: There’s nothing wrong with systems that don’t scale — yet. This isn’t a failure; it’s an opportunity. Instead of chasing new users, double down on delivering more value to existing ones.
Imagine tripling the utility for active users while doubling subscription prices. Even if you lose 40% of customers, you still net 20% revenue growth. This is net negative churn — the holy grail of SaaS economics. It’s not a bug; it’s the entire reason SaaS startups exist.
