Securing initial customers as a newly launched startup remains one of the most grueling and defining challenges in the entire business ecosystem. Even when young companies manage to snag some early interest, capture fleeting attention, or generate a wave of initial curiosity, there is never a guarantee those customers will actually stick around for the long haul. Transforming casual observers into loyal, paying users is a hurdle that separates thriving enterprises from businesses that quietly fade away.
At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, this perennial entrepreneurial dilemma took center stage during a panel featuring experienced founders and investors. Elia Wallen, founder and CEO of travel startup Engine; Grant Lee, founder and CEO of presentation software company Gamma; and Crystal Huang, general partner at Google Ventures, came together to share concrete insights and hard-won advice on how companies can effectively attract and retain customers in a rapidly shifting economic landscape.
The discussion arrived at a fascinating juncture in technology and business. In the current era, young artificial intelligence companies like Cluely and Instinct are successfully building massive audiences not just through their underlying software products, but also through the colorful and highly visible online presences of their founders. For many contemporary entrepreneurs, social media can easily seem like a magical, silver-bullet solution for reaching early customers with minimal friction. However, according to Grant Lee, founders who want to genuinely heighten and sharpen their business strategy with modern marketing must approach it with careful calculation rather than blind faith.
Gamma, a company that sells AI-powered presentation software, managed to scale its business exponentially through a meticulously planned social media strategy. Rather than relying solely on traditional corporate channels, Gamma deployed influencers through its custom-tailored Ambassadors program, affectionately known within the company as the "Gambassador" program. Crucially, the company adopted this forward-looking plan well before influencer-based marketing had become a tried-and-true, standard playbook for smaller B2B and software companies. That calculated gamble ultimately paid off, helping fuel Gamma’s ascent to a multi-billion-dollar valuation alongside an impressive annual recurring revenue milestone.
Yet, as Lee was quick to point out during the panel, simply handing influencers a platform, gifting them a subscription, and telling them to promote your brand online does not automatically translate to sustainable sales or long-term growth. There is significantly more nuance to the process than most casual observers might assume.
"If you have a product that can serve many different segments or use cases, then you want to basically have creators that can target each one of those," Lee explained to the audience. He elaborated on the diversity of modern professional markets, noting that user bases often span across distinct professional profiles. "If you have folks that are in consulting versus people that do all their marketing and create all the decks for their CMO, there’s all these different segments you might want to go after."
Lee cautioned that founders sometimes fall into the trap of treating creator marketing or influencer marketing as a passive, "set-it-and-forget-it" endeavor. When startups treat human partners like automated ad units, the campaigns almost invariably underperform.
"I think you’re better served by really spending a lot of time with these creators," Lee added, emphasizing the depth of collaboration required to make modern digital partnerships work. "Because if they’re not able to understand how to articulate the value of your product, it doesn’t matter how much money you spend, it’s just going to fall flat."
At the same time, the broader conversation made it clear that the effectiveness of social media and digital creator campaigns depends heavily on the specific type of business, its target demographic, and its industry vertical. In many cases, alternative ways of reaching customers can prove to be just as effective—if not significantly more so—than the latest viral trend dominating feeds.
Elia Wallen knows this reality intimately. His company, Engine, which manages lodging, corporate housing, and travel bookings for midsize businesses, successfully bootstrapped its way to $150 million in bookings before ever taking on a single dollar of outside venture capital funding. Notably, during that crucial formative period of rapid expansion, Engine utilized virtually no visible social media strategy whatsoever. For Wallen, traditional, tried-and-true sales tactics can be far more useful and reliable than the momentary validation of a positive TikTok video or a viral thread on X.
"We did events and we smiled and dialed," Wallen said, reflecting on the foundational days of building his enterprise. "We still have a lot of people picking up the phone. A lot of people who didn’t grow up with that or don’t understand it think that it’s outdated or it doesn’t work, but it does. It’s a hard thing. There are a lot of companies that just refuse to do it or don’t know how to do it well. But they’re missing out on a very big offline client base." He underscored his point with a simple, pragmatic summary of old-school enterprise grit: "The phone still works."
Wallen also shared an inventive, highly personalized in-person tactic that his company deployed during its scrappy early days to stand out in crowded environments. In an effort to capture attention and drive foot traffic, Engine hired a professional magician named David to perform close-up magic tricks for prospective clients at industry events. The magician would engage attendees and subtly encourage them to visit Engine’s exhibition booth. The anecdote served as a vivid reminder that old-fashioned personal engagement and memorable human experiences can work just as well—and often better—than the latest digital marketing hacks or algorithmic tricks.
Once a startup manages to secure those elusive early customers, however, the challenge immediately shifts from acquisition to retention and long-term value maximization. Crystal Huang, a general partner at Google Ventures who has managed and advised numerous early-stage startups and shepherded them through the perilous waters of hyper-growth, emphasized that founders can extract a tremendous amount of strategic value simply by closely analyzing how their initial customers actually interact with the product.
"Can you look into usage data and figure out if it’s recurring, if it’s increasing, if they are referring their friends?" Huang asked, highlighting the critical performance indicators that venture capitalists look for when evaluating a young company’s health. "It can come across in early usage and retention information as well. And then also, do you see some super fans, right, who even want to work at the company, promote the company, be attached to the brand?"
For Huang, identifying and nurturing these deeply invested users is an essential step in building a resilient business foundation that can withstand market fluctuations. "You need to have ways to create evangelists who are really passionate about the product," she concluded.
