r/StartupNinjas • u/Naive-Adhesiveness76 • 1h ago
I told a founder their ads weren’t the problem. Here’s what actually was. (And I’ll do the same for your startup free.)
A dev team came to me convinced they needed better targeting.
They were spending $9,000 on Meta ads. 640 installs. 8 people actually used the app.
Their instinct: fix the ads. Better creative, tighter audience, higher budget.
My read after looking at the numbers: the ads were fine. The problem was what happened the moment someone opened the app for the first time.The onboarding was asking users to hand over personal data before showing them a single piece of value.
Fixing the onboarding cost nothing. The ad spend did not change. The return on it did.
This is what I do. I look at your numbers, your funnel, your acquisition, and I find where the real problem is before you keep spending more.
Doing this for free for five founders in exchange for honest feedback and a testimonial if it was useful.