:) What happened was that we removed the crap that was built before. Only 2 things could not be removed: products and people, so the homepage became a precursor to what it is today: a minimalist grid of products posted by users.
I then spent $20 a day on Facebook ads. The goal was simply to get a small stream of people to check out the website and to see if they would use it. I didn't think I could actually grow a community by spending on ads since I didn't have that much money to spend. To my shock, people actually started using it and were sticking around. The reason was that the website exposed them to surprising, unique products from stores they've never heard about.
It's also worth noting that I optimized the ad a lot, tweaking all the details (targeting, image used, copy, where the ad clicks to) until I had an ad that was performing really well, meaning that I was making that $20 count.
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it. It is amazing that you got the growth you did by only spending 20 bucks a day on FB ads. People must really like the product! Great job.
It is a bit hard to believe. As another person pointed out that equates to 16 users for each $1 spent, assuming she ran the ads for 3 months or so. Must have been very viral to maximize the return on each dollar spent.
Damn good value when you consider the price per user Facebook paid for WhatsApp...
