4 ms·

Running ads is like running a VC fund. 95% of your money is wasted, but if you do it right, that last 5% makes up for it.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tiborsaas 6y ago
This makes me very sad because I fear it's true. I want to play around building successful side projects, but to get traction I need to play around with ads. To buy ads with my own money and knowing 95% of it will be wasted is too much of a blocker.
- ryanwaggoner 6y ago
  I’m a fan of using ads to accelerate growth, but you don’t have to. I bet most profitable side projects got there without ads. And you probably shouldn’t spend money on ads in the early days, for a bunch of reasons. In general, I’d focus on organic growth channels to start with and only switch to ads when you have that working, you have revenue that’s growing, churn isn’t too high, etc.
  - tiborsaas 6y ago
    I know I don't have to, but I don't know how to get to these organic channels. Tried Instagram audience building, but got bored with it, zero sales. I also can't hire a marketer since they will probably just want to spend $ on ads and the circle closes. It's not SAAS, but e-commerce.
- jlbnjmn 6y ago
  Ads are just conversations at scale. Elon Musk has conversations at scale on Twitter, no ads needed. If you know who would use your product, find them and have conversations. Talking to real people is the first step to great ads anyway. If you don't want to have conversations with your users, or don't know who they would be, maybe you would be better off building something else.
  - tiborsaas 6y ago
    It's a good connection, unfortunately I don't have a massive audience to talk to. In communities on FB/Reddit I could find some of these people, but I'm afraid it would be considered just spam. I also tried to build following on Instagram, but didn't really work sales wise.
- koverda 6y ago
  You can get traction on projects without running ads. Show your product off to relevant communities of people asking for feedback, etc. If people start buying, start considering ads.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

tiborsaas 6y ago

This makes me very sad because I fear it's true. I want to play around building successful side projects, but to get traction I need to play around with ads. To buy ads with my own money and knowing 95% of it will be wasted is too much of a blocker.

ryanwaggoner 6y ago
I’m a fan of using ads to accelerate growth, but you don’t have to. I bet most profitable side projects got there without ads. And you probably shouldn’t spend money on ads in the early days, for a bunch of reasons. In general, I’d focus on organic growth channels to start with and only switch to ads when you have that working, you have revenue that’s growing, churn isn’t too high, etc.
- tiborsaas 6y ago
  I know I don't have to, but I don't know how to get to these organic channels. Tried Instagram audience building, but got bored with it, zero sales. I also can't hire a marketer since they will probably just want to spend $ on ads and the circle closes. It's not SAAS, but e-commerce.
jlbnjmn 6y ago
Ads are just conversations at scale. Elon Musk has conversations at scale on Twitter, no ads needed. If you know who would use your product, find them and have conversations. Talking to real people is the first step to great ads anyway. If you don't want to have conversations with your users, or don't know who they would be, maybe you would be better off building something else.
- tiborsaas 6y ago
  It's a good connection, unfortunately I don't have a massive audience to talk to. In communities on FB/Reddit I could find some of these people, but I'm afraid it would be considered just spam. I also tried to build following on Instagram, but didn't really work sales wise.
koverda 6y ago
You can get traction on projects without running ads. Show your product off to relevant communities of people asking for feedback, etc. If people start buying, start considering ads.