Behance doing things that don't scale

In the world of startups, one of the most challenging obstacles to overcome is the infamous “chicken-and-egg” problem. This is especially true for platforms that rely on both creators and viewers to thrive. Without content creators, there’s nothing for viewers to see; without viewers, there’s no incentive for creators to contribute. This dilemma has sunk countless promising platforms before they could gain traction. Behance, now one of the world’s premier platforms for creative professionals to showcase their work, faced this exact challenge in its early days. The solution they devised—personally reaching out to top designers and artists for interviews—stands as a masterclass in doing things that don’t scale to build initial momentum.

The Vision Behind Behance

Before diving into Behance’s growth strategy, it’s important to understand the vision that drove its creation. Scott Belsky, who co-founded Behance in 2006 with Matias Corea, had identified a fundamental problem in the creative world: incredible talent was going unnoticed because creative professionals lacked an effective way to showcase their work and connect with opportunities.

At the time, designers and artists typically had their own personal websites, but these were often isolated islands in the vast ocean of the internet. There was no centralized platform where creative professionals could display their portfolios, gain exposure, and connect with potential clients or employers. Belsky envisioned Behance as that platform—a place where the world’s creative talent could be organized and accessible.

But building this platform presented a classic chicken-and-egg problem. To attract viewers and potential clients, Behance needed high-quality portfolios from talented designers and artists. Yet to attract those designers and artists, the platform needed to demonstrate that it could provide value through exposure to viewers and clients. It was a seemingly impossible situation that required an innovative approach to overcome.

The Unscalable Solution: Personal Outreach and Interviews

Faced with this challenge, Belsky and his team devised a strategy that was labor-intensive and completely unscalable, but brilliantly effective. As Belsky later recounted:

“We got our first 100 users by contacting the 100 designers and artists we admired most and asked if we could interview them for a blog on productivity in the creative world. Nearly all of them said yes. After asking a series of questions over email, we offered to construct a portfolio on their behalf on Behance, alongside the blog post. Nobody declined.”

This approach was ingenious for several reasons:

1. It targeted the right people: By focusing on designers and artists they admired, the Behance team ensured they were reaching out to high-quality creators whose work would set the standard for the platform.
2. It offered immediate value: The interview request provided value to the designers and artists through recognition and exposure, making them more receptive to the outreach.
3. It created a natural segue: The interview process established a relationship that made the portfolio creation offer feel like a natural extension rather than a cold request.
4. It removed friction: By offering to construct the portfolios themselves, the Behance team eliminated the effort barrier that might have prevented busy creatives from participating.
5. It solved both sides of the equation: The blog posts attracted viewers interested in creative productivity, while the portfolios provided content for those viewers to explore.

This approach required significant manual effort. The team had to research and identify the 100 designers and artists they most admired. They had to craft personalized outreach messages, conduct interviews via email, write up blog posts, and then manually create portfolios for each participant. It was time-consuming, labor-intensive work that could never scale to thousands or millions of users. But it wasn’t meant to—it was designed specifically to solve the initial chicken-and-egg problem and create a foundation upon which a scalable platform could be built.

The Execution: Building Relationships Through Genuine Interest

The execution of this strategy wasn’t just about mechanically following a process; it was about building genuine relationships with creative professionals. The Behance team approached these interviews with authentic curiosity about the creative process and productivity methods of the designers and artists they admired.

The interview questions focused on how these creatives organized their work, managed their time, and navigated the challenges of bringing ideas to life—topics that aligned with Behance’s broader mission of “organizing the creative world.” This wasn’t just a growth hack; it was a manifestation of the company’s core values and interests.

This authenticity came through in the interactions and helped establish trust with the creative professionals. They weren’t being asked to simply upload their work to yet another platform; they were being engaged in meaningful conversations about their craft and process. The portfolio creation was presented as a natural extension of that conversation—a way to showcase not just their work but also the insights they had shared about their creative approach.

The manual creation of portfolios was particularly significant. By taking on this task themselves, the Behance team demonstrated their commitment to the platform and to the creative professionals they were featuring. They weren’t asking for a favor; they were offering one. This inversion of the typical platform-creator dynamic helped overcome the reluctance that many might have felt about joining a new, unproven platform.

The Results: A Platform Filled with Quality Work

The results of this strategy were transformative for Behance. As Belsky noted, “This manual labor was the most important thing we ever did. It solved our chicken-or-egg problem.”

By the end of this initial outreach effort, Behance had achieved several critical objectives:

1. Quality Content: The platform was populated with high-quality work from 100 respected creative professionals, providing immediate value to visitors.
2. Standard Setting: These initial portfolios established the quality standard for the platform, influencing future users to submit similarly impressive work.
3. Social Proof: Having recognized names from the design and art world on the platform provided social proof that legitimized Behance in the eyes of other creative professionals.
4. Network Effects: Each featured creative had their own network of colleagues and admirers who were now exposed to Behance, creating a ripple effect of awareness.
5. Content for Marketing: The interviews and portfolios provided rich content that could be shared across social media and other channels to attract more users.

Perhaps most importantly, this approach allowed Behance to break free from the chicken-and-egg problem that traps so many platforms at their inception. With quality content in place, they could attract viewers and potential clients. With viewers and clients engaging with the platform, they could attract more creative professionals. The flywheel had begun to turn.

Beyond the Initial 100: Scaling Through Community

Having successfully seeded the platform with high-quality content, Behance was able to transition from unscalable manual efforts to more scalable growth mechanisms. The initial 100 designers and artists became ambassadors for the platform, often sharing their Behance portfolios with their own networks and bringing in new users organically.

The team also leveraged the content created through the interviews to build thought leadership in the creative community. The insights gathered about creative productivity informed Belsky’s thinking on “making ideas happen,” which later became the title of his bestselling book. This thought leadership further elevated Behance’s profile in the creative world and attracted more users to the platform.

As the community grew, Behance introduced features that facilitated discovery and connection, such as the ability to follow other creatives, curated galleries, and eventually, integration with Adobe’s Creative Cloud after the company was acquired by Adobe in 2012 for a reported $150 million. But none of these scalable growth mechanisms would have been possible without the unscalable foundation laid through those initial 100 interviews and manually created portfolios.

The Psychological Insight: Reducing Friction Through Service

Underlying Behance’s approach was a profound psychological insight: when asking someone to try something new, reducing friction is essential, and one of the most effective ways to reduce friction is to do the work for them.

When Behance offered to create portfolios for the designers and artists they interviewed, they weren’t just saving them time; they were eliminating the mental barriers that might have prevented participation. These barriers included:

1. Learning Curve: The need to learn how to use a new platform.
2. Time Investment: The time required to upload and organize work.
3. Uncertainty: Questions about whether the effort would be worthwhile.
4. Perfectionism: The desire to present work in the best possible light, which can lead to procrastination.

By taking on these burdens themselves, the Behance team made it incredibly easy for creative professionals to say yes. There was no downside for the creatives—they got exposure through the interview, a professionally created portfolio on a new platform, and all without having to invest significant time or effort.

This approach also allowed Behance to ensure that the portfolios were created in a way that showcased both the platform’s capabilities and the creative’s work to best advantage. They could structure the portfolios consistently, highlight features they wanted to promote, and ensure that the overall quality of presentation was high.

Lessons for Entrepreneurs: The Power of Manual Effort

Behance’s growth strategy offers several valuable lessons for entrepreneurs facing their own chicken-and-egg problems:

1. Embrace Unscalable Solutions: Sometimes the best way to solve an initial growth challenge is through methods that could never work at scale but are perfect for creating a foundation.
2. Offer Value First: Instead of asking users to take a chance on your platform, find ways to provide immediate value that makes participation a clear win for them.
3. Reduce Friction to Zero: Identify the barriers that might prevent adoption and find ways to eliminate them, even if it means doing the work yourself.
4. Target Quality Over Quantity: Focus initial efforts on attracting the right users who will set the standard for your platform, rather than trying to maximize total user numbers.
5. Build Genuine Relationships: Approach early users with authentic interest and a desire to serve their needs, not just as resources to exploit for growth.
6. Use Content as a Bridge: Create content that serves as a natural bridge to your product or service, making the transition from interest to adoption seamless.
7. Set Standards Early: The first users of a platform often define its culture and quality standards, so be intentional about who those users are.

Perhaps the most important lesson from Behance’s experience is that sometimes the most valuable work entrepreneurs can do is the manual, unscalable labor that no one else is willing to do. As Belsky emphasized, “This manual labor was the most important thing we ever did.”

The Legacy: A Platform Built on Personal Connection

Today, Behance hosts millions of projects across creative fields ranging from graphic design and photography to fashion and architecture. It has become an essential platform for creative professionals to showcase their work, find inspiration, and connect with opportunities. This success can be traced back to those initial 100 interviews and manually created portfolios.

What makes this story particularly powerful is that Behance’s growth strategy wasn’t just a clever hack; it was an expression of the company’s core mission to empower creative professionals. The interviews weren’t just a means to populate the platform; they were genuine attempts to understand and share insights about creative productivity. The manually created portfolios weren’t just content; they were demonstrations of Behance’s commitment to showcasing creative work in the best possible light.

This alignment between growth strategy and mission created authenticity that resonated with the creative community. It wasn’t just about growing a platform; it was about serving creative professionals in a way that hadn’t been done before.

In a world where many startups focus on growth hacks and viral mechanisms, Behance’s story reminds us of the power of personal connection, manual effort, and genuine service. Sometimes, the most effective way to build something that scales is to start by doing things that don’t scale at all.

As Scott Belsky reflected years later, the willingness to do this unscalable work wasn’t just a growth strategy—it was a competitive advantage. While others were looking for shortcuts and automation, Behance was willing to put in the manual effort to create something of lasting value. That willingness to do what others wouldn’t became the foundation for a platform that transformed how creative professionals showcase their work and connect with opportunities around the world.