> Paid advertising might test if your solution works for a very specific user, but it doesn’t tell you that the unit economics will work at scale. Paid channel

> Paid advertising might test if your solution works for a very specific user, but it doesn’t tell you that the unit economics will work at scale. Paid channels like Facebook & Google have incredibly diverse audiences with any number of sub-populations you can target, and there's nothing special about organic traffic that inherently makes it unbiased and special. > In contrast, the customer acquisition cost is zero for organic channels. It just seems free because you can't measure the effects of other channels on direct and branded search (unless you're not doing any paid) or your accountant got creative and put the social media, PR, influencer, and affiliate spend in "Brand Marketing" so it doesn't count towards your customer acquisition cost under "Paid Marketing". You're spending money one way or another regardless of where you're putting it in the books. > Instead, embrace the hustle and find ways to sell, distribute, and persuade without cash Your time is money, and is probably worth more than the ad spend you're trying to get out of. Burning cash on salary while you try to hunt down "free" customers can be misleadingly expensive. Free traffic is great, and I'd like to get as much of it as possible, but it's very hard to build a business on something you have little direct influence over.