[azinman2]

I don't know that this advice is so realistic anymore, or at least the target click thru rates should be adjusted. Ads on FB now have very low click-thru, and even then, I'm not sure how much that ultimately tells you about your product or market. You can spend a lot of money going through all kinds of different customer segments on FB, or you could recognize that there are other ways to attract customers than social media ads.

This book looks into other techniques to do so: https://www.amazon.com/Bullseye-Marketing-Grow-Business-Fast...

Of course none of these can tell you the 'why' -- it might be something simple that you would never have thought of, but you end up pivoting too early. Or perhaps your marketing isn't polished. Or you're way early/late to a field. If you knew the 'why,' that can be worth far more than blowing a huge cash load on FB. I feel like techies flock to such techniques because it's easy and fits into the scale techno-narrative. It means that many will be mislead.

[irjustin]

Absolutely, we're in agreement.

"Test" doesn't necessarily mean spend on FB/G Ads. It means devise a test feedback signal is quick, low cost and yields a meaningful/measurable metric.

An idea selling a more efficient ship engine to ship owners is never going to do well in Ads, but there is a test that is more cost effective than build engine => sell engine.

> Of course none of these can tell you the 'why' -- it might be something simple that you would never have thought of, but you end up pivoting too early.

This is a founder dilemma and the thing founders need-to/should worry about. Don't build until you've got at least a decent, objective signal the idea is worth the cost of building, but how you get there is a doozy.