The jackpot question worth a million dollars is not about building a product people want but the sustainability of the franticness behind your product. It is easy to create a product that shines ephemerally like a firework, but to build a long-lasting firework is to go against the law of physics of the firework.
Is it a question about scalability? No. The challenge is that if ten people want your product, you want 100 more people to like it. Got a 100? Then, 1000. This quickly becomes a concern of how much resources you have as you'd think like, if I have a higher marketing budget, my product will sell more. Then, the question becomes how much capital you can raise or accumulate as the founder. The common culprit is to think that “if I were to born to a wealthy family, I'd not have had the issue with capital.”. This may be true for the initial capital. But in the long run, you’ll still face the challenge of raising money from strangers - your family name could only help you go so far. To increase your likelihood and credibility in front of a stranger, a Ph.D. degree from a top-notch institution in the world provides you the sufficient credibility to raise capital from investors who do not know you before.
Of course, you need teams of people to achieve ambitious goals - Tesla is not built alone, sadly. Take marketing as an example. You’ll, at some point, need people to run the marketing campaigns and maintain your company’s social media. This quickly becomes a race against time because if you let the marketing team suck up most of your time and you are the 'key founder of your product and services, the iteration of your product will be stuck at v1.0. In other words, good luck on not letting your competitors come up with a similar product and, hopefully, a not better product or service than yours. Focus on people, but do not stop the iterations of the product. Otherwise, the company’s longevity is in crisis before any HR crisis.
Is it a question about scalability? No. The challenge is that if ten people want your product, you want 100 more people to like it. Got a 100? Then, 1000. This quickly becomes a concern of how much resources you have as you'd think like, if I have a higher marketing budget, my product will sell more. Then, the question becomes how much capital you can raise or accumulate as the founder. The common culprit is to think that “if I were to born to a wealthy family, I'd not have had the issue with capital.”. This may be true for the initial capital. But in the long run, you’ll still face the challenge of raising money from strangers - your family name could only help you go so far. To increase your likelihood and credibility in front of a stranger, a Ph.D. degree from a top-notch institution in the world provides you the sufficient credibility to raise capital from investors who do not know you before.
Of course, you need teams of people to achieve ambitious goals - Tesla is not built alone, sadly. Take marketing as an example. You’ll, at some point, need people to run the marketing campaigns and maintain your company’s social media. This quickly becomes a race against time because if you let the marketing team suck up most of your time and you are the 'key founder of your product and services, the iteration of your product will be stuck at v1.0. In other words, good luck on not letting your competitors come up with a similar product and, hopefully, a not better product or service than yours. Focus on people, but do not stop the iterations of the product. Otherwise, the company’s longevity is in crisis before any HR crisis.