“I would push back hard. At Frich we obsessed over the aha moment in onboarding because we saw the same stat: less than 25% of people open an app after the first time. Pouring money into acquisition before that moment clicks is just paying to fill a leaky bucket.”

“Pouring more users into a product they don't come back to is filling a leaky bucket. Albert Cheng told me even 30% day-one retention is solid for a consumer app, so if yours is well below that, fix activation and onboarding before you spend another dollar on acquisition.”

“I would pump the brakes on more spend. At Hubble we grew to thousands of signups without a dollar of marketing because each expert brought their own audience, but that only worked once the product actually retained people. If most users vanish after one session, you're paying to fill a leaky bucket.”

“I’d push back hard: pouring more money into acquisition when most users don’t make it past the first session is just setting cash on fire. At Jobright.ai I saw growth teams obsess over top-of-funnel numbers while retention craters, and the apps that last fix the drop-off first. Watch five first-session recordings, find the moment users actually get bored or confused, and fix that before you spend another dollar.”

“With Cal AI we saw the same thing: pouring more into acquisition before the first session actually converts is just lighting money on fire. I'd fight your cofounder on this. Fix the onboarding and the moment of value first, then scale.”

“I would stop spending on acquisition until you know what happens in the first 25 seconds after someone opens your app. At XMTP we saw retention collapse when users didn't hit an interaction success inside that window, and no amount of top-of-funnel spend fixes a leaky bottom.”

“I'd push back on the acquisition spend until you know why they leave. Most founders I talk to call this a retention problem, but it's usually an activation problem: the bucket leaks between signup and the first real win. We recently reworked onboarding for a product and saw signup conversion lift about 20% with the same traffic. Same users, different first ten minutes.”

“At Status we obsessed over what made someone stay past day one, because pouring money into acquisition before that loop works just burns cash. I'd freeze ad spend and put the team on retention: watch three first sessions a day, find the moment people actually care, and build toward it.”

“I spent years running a marketing agency and saw the same trap: founders pouring money into ads while the product leaks users at the first click. Seth Godin nailed it for me with the restaurant analogy: you don't grow by chasing new tables when the couple at table six is having a bad time.”