Start Small, Get Huge

The larger a vehicle is, the more fuel it consumes, the more power it needs to move, the more costly it becomes. This is no different to businesses or their products. Thanks to the ever-changing internet, it's possible for a lone man to do more than what entire businesses could twenty years ago. Smart organisations have noticed this, and adapted to exploit it. By changing to a smaller business model that utilises the internet, an organisation can cut costs and for more efficient solutions.


However, becoming lightweight isn't the entire solution. For example, an exploding demographic can easily overwhelm a service, or the competition may change their system to one that's more efficient. Indeed, a business needs to be flexible and scalable to remain competitive. Seth Godin described it best when he said "Get small. Think big." It means to deliver a big product or service, but in a way that minimises cost and resources.

 Some methods that enforce this behaviour include:

• Outsourcing whenever appropriate - Do calculations off-site or direct specific tasks to specialist services.
• Using loose coupling - Be able to change methods without changing the end result.
• Operating fast - Finding and solving problems earlier.
• Avoid restrictive solutions - Open-ended or remixable solutions enable flexibility.

It's interesting to note that this pattern often overlaps with the Perpetual Beta pattern. A beta may start small, allowing it to grow to fill its audience's tastes. Or a program that continues to evolve may adapt to its competition, or try to appeal to a newly-found niche audience.

There's a lot of roles that can be delegated off-site.
Finding the right methods and services to produce them can save
a fortune, which means success or failure to smaller businesses.

One organisation which "started small, thought big" was Mojang, founded near the end of their first project: Minecraft. Before Mojang was founded, it was just Markus "Notch" Persson, a lone programmer and developer.  Minecraft at this stage was a simple java game embedded in the browser, limited in features and especially buggy in multiplayer.


As Minecraft progressed, so too did its environment. In fact, the website could not keep up with the explosive growth of its user base: repeatedly the servers collapsed from the sheer number of users trying to play the online game. Quickly, Mojang changed its act: Minecraft was altered so people could play the game offline (albeit limited with some features) and found a different plan for its servers so it could cater for the increasing demand.

This quick action allowed Mojang to recover from an unfavourable scenario and averted complete disaster. If the group didn't rely on their host or act quickly, the interest in the game would have dwindled and possibly stopped altogether. As of today, Mojang has since "completed" Minecraft, and has grown both in number and in projects.

References:
OpenText, Low Cost Enterprise Scalability, retrieved 11th May 2012
Seth Godin (2005), Small is the new big
Mojang Homepage