Saved by Jordan Bester and
How Startups Die From Their Addiction to Paid Marketing at Andrewchen
1/ Many of the biggest implosions in recent history - especially ecommerce - have been due to startups getting addicted to paid marketing while fooling themselves on Customer Acqusition Costs. As spend scales, it always gets more expensive and harder to track - never less.
andrew chenx.com
New essay:
Every marketing channel sucks right now (full thing on my newsletter, just subscribe via link in bio)
These days I’m spending a lot of my time with very early stage startups (yes, as part of the program at a16z to invest up to $1M into each, called a16z speedrun -- speedrun.a16z.com) and as part of this, I spend a lot of time talking... See more
Every marketing channel sucks right now (full thing on my newsletter, just subscribe via link in bio)
These days I’m spending a lot of my time with very early stage startups (yes, as part of the program at a16z to invest up to $1M into each, called a16z speedrun -- speedrun.a16z.com) and as part of this, I spend a lot of time talking... See more
andrew chen • Tweet
Paid user acquisition is a curse. Later stage consumer startups that depend on it are the walking dead.
• After launch, ROI declines consistently across every advertising channel
• Early metrics are misleading because traffic is front-loaded due to the way ad algos work
Josh Buckleyx.com