Introducing Trust, and the Importance of Product-Founder Fit

Photo by Vanna Phon on UnsplashCustomer acquisition is the lifeblood of many startups from e-commerce to gaming to marketplace companies, among others. Most of these startups spend the lion’s share of their marketing budget in today’s social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Snap, TikTok and so on because — no surprise — that’s where the customers are.Digital advertising spend is projected to grow 25% this year to $191 billion, and Google (69%), Facebook (59%), Snapchat (116%) and Twitter (87%) all just reported rapid growth in their year over year advertising revenues. For these companies, it looks like a rosy picture.But if you ask anyone in the ecosystem of customer acquisition — founders, marketers, investors — and you’ll hear the same thing: customer acquisition (CAC) is getting harder and more expensive. Some of this can be attributed to the exponential growth in e-commerce and direct-to-consumer businesses as a result of the pandemic and global lockdowns — eCommerce for example grew 39% just last year – so there’s simply more demand. And some of this can be attributed to the increased pressure on the available platforms not only to facilitate acquisition at scale but to do so in an increasingly “walled garden,” privacy-restricted world.Despite the huge and sustained growth in digital advertising (or maybe