> But the real secret of marketing is that it has a very low success/conversion rate That's not a secret. Everybody who books advertising online knows their co

> But the real secret of marketing is that it has a very low success/conversion rate That's not a secret. Everybody who books advertising online knows their conversion rate. It doesn't matter whether it is low, what matters is that a dollar spent on advertising turns into more than one dollar in revenue. > Marketing companies will pretend that you'll lose money if you don't, so you'll have to spend that money on them instead. Many companies - especially those starting out - don't care about losing money, they care about not increasing revenue. If hiring more sales people and spending more on marketing increases revenue - and it generally does - then operating at a loss is okay. If it doesn't, maybe there's no way to salvage your product - figuring that out has value, too.