Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Zero acquisition after pausing ads proves a product lacks organic traction

Ryan Wiggins · Ryan Wiggins: Scaling WhatsApp from 0-100M; How to Build a Growth Team; Mercury Neobank | E1016 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · May 19, 2023 · at 24:41

Ryan Wiggins, VP of Growth and Analytics at Mercury, shares a diagnostic test for distinguishing artificial ad-driven growth from true organic product adoption.

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“If you're running ad campaigns, if you turn them off, what happens? And if it totally goes to zero, you actually don't have something that's working because you're not starting to see that you know, organic adoption is happening.”

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