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Cohen: Products strong in direct sales rarely succeed in SEO or social

Jason Cohen · The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine) · Jan 25, 2026 · at 1:12:40

WP Engine founder Jason Cohen shares an empirical observation about channel switching when core growth channels saturate.

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“A product that's sold really well direct actually doesn't do well in things like social and SEO and vice versa. If you're getting a lot of traffic through SEO, adding ads often like costs a lot and doesn't really move the needle”

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