July 11, 2026

We had a good conversation today about growth but it left me with more questions than answers.

It started with a familiar complaint across departments: our marketing isn't working. (bruh moment) Campaigns aren't converting as there is no traffic spike at all. Seems like organic content is the only way to go for us right now. Before diving deeper into the conversation, here is the background story: It was given to us by leadership to try everything all at once so that we know what works and what doesn’t. Sounds pretty compelling to give us freedom to experiment (we all love creativity). However, isn’t it better to double down on what’s working already to expand our impact rather than spread ourselves across the border - from what I see is that organic events at entry level job seekers are the people that drive the most traffic (hope to hear what y’all thoughts are and please correct me otherwise). To be determined on solving the cold start problem…

To follow-up, we are switching paid ads channels due to budget constraints. While we are “doing the job” to advertise our channel, such action seems futile when the actions that were expected from these campaigns don’t convert. I am curious then…

More and more questions are coming to me: When do we know our ICP is good enough to expand beyond it? What's the ROI of these advertisements channeling through different sources? How do we want our audience to feel about our brand? (I am not sure if this is the right time to establish yet since our company is still new.)

In marketing, the framework I keep coming back to is this: start with the action you want someone to take after encountering your campaign, then reverse-engineer the steps required to produce that action. Oh, can’t forget the ultimate one is how you make someone feel. Not the other way around, picking channels and tactics first, then hoping they add up to something

Which brings me back to the case study sitting in front of us: no traffic after the campaign drops, showing that such effectiveness doesn't line up with the action we actually wanted people to take. I wonder if that is the symptom that we've been trying to scale the audience before nailing down our beachhead…

Until next time.