In my three previous businesses, I hustled and cold-called my way to paying customers (or at least valuable pilot programs) each time. But these were enterprise

In my three previous businesses, I hustled and cold-called my way to paying customers (or at least valuable pilot programs) each time. But these were enterprise (B2B) businesses that could cut relatively large monthly checks. The reward was absolutely worth the lift. That said, I'm having a hard time making the leap that for some consumer internet products with hefty cold-start issues cold calling is still a viable strategy. For a product that has no network effect and is useful for the first user (e.g. Google search), sure, I'll buy it. For a product that needs 10+ people to start getting useful (e.g. Facebook), sure. But for a product that needs multiple thousands of users to start getting useful, how does cold calling still make sense? These 1x1 users would come to your product, say "Um, it's a ghost town.", and then leave, never to return. Wouldn't the founders be better off putting effort into PR (TC, Pando, etc)? TLDR. I'm not arguing that non-scaling hustle is not important -- I've seen the results myself, first hand. But doesn't the type of product really dictate how effective it will be, and therefore, how strongly should be prioritized over other avenues?