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Facebook grew without advertising.

• petercooper 17y ago
  Facebook is an inherently social business that users only find useful if they promote it - so they do. An edge case. Bringing Facebook-like user promotion to a company selling everyday products would probably require users becoming affiliates and getting kickbacks. That can work (e.g. Avon) but having my friends potentially being shills seems more sinister than regular advertising. Thinking about this, though, did bring another option to mind that many startups use: press mentions. Branson and his Virgin companies are masters at this. So are Apple, but they're still massive on the advertising.
• jacoblyles 17y ago
  Many new and superior entrants into a market used advertising to gain a foothold. Think Sears. The economics of the web are different and have lowered the value of advertising compared to the value of word of mouth. But there is still some value left in advertising, especially in markets for more traditional goods that don't spread as easily through viral means.
• philwelch 17y ago
  Facebook's advertising is the friend invites. Once Mark Zuckerberg invited all his friends at Harvard, the users themselves handled the advertising. It was ingeniously targeted, too--the only people who got ads for Facebook were people whose friends were already using Facebook, which is the exact group of people Facebook wants as customers.