Want to hear something insane? Every six seconds, Acquisition.com portfolio companies get a new lead. I’m going to teach you how to get new customers so fast it feels illegal. As I’ve done this, we’ve gotten three leads: one at the first second, one at the sixth second, one at the twelfth second, and right now we just got another lead.
Every business wants more leads, but none of them want to give good stuff away for free. My favorite marketing strategy for getting tons of leads is:
- Look at what other people are charging for.
- Look at the hard costs of what it would cost for you to deliver it.
- Give that thing away for free.
- See how many leads you get.
- See how many you convert.
The idea is that you can give something significantly better away for free than everyone else does—ideally something that other people actually charge for. If you really want to be a savage about it (and why wouldn’t you?), make it even better than what they have.
This feeds into one of my favorite business models: look at what everyone else does, make it better, make it free, and make money another way. If you wanted to figure out what this would look like, consider your cost to acquire a customer. You can either break it down to the cost per lead or the cost per customer.
Now where this gets extra interesting is that maybe you closed one out of five leads before, but with this new lead magnet where you provide value first, maybe you close one out of four leads. Suddenly, not only are the leads cheaper, but you’re also closing a higher percentage of them. This means two things help you get even more customers from one powerful move.
These kinds of bets are hard for employees to make because they might say, “I just want to give away a bunch of money,” and your gut response might be to say no. But if you’re the one who thought of it, you’d have the authority to ensure the math works. If you’re a marketing founder, stay as close to marketing as possible.
One story I love as a litmus test for knowing if I’m too far away from something is this: I want to know where the bodies are buried. If I don’t know what’s wrong in a department or what could be better, it means I’m too far away. It’s an easy way for me to stay in touch at an appropriate level of distance.
If you’re an awesome marketer or that’s your primary skill—promotion and advertising—you must avoid getting too far removed from your work. When that happens, your skills dilute over time as others take over tasks that may not leverage your unique abilities.
For example, in one of our portfolio companies, a founder had 18 people in their marketing division. After a conversation with me about efficiency and output, they realized they could run advertising with just two people if needed. This revealed that many team members were simply along for the ride rather than driving results.
Keith Rabois has an analogy about Civil War cannons: imagine having one cannon with lots of ammunition next to it versus adding more barrels (cannons). Most companies add ammunition (people) instead of barrels (high-leverage individuals). The key is finding barrels—rare individuals who truly move the needle.
As businesses grow, it’s easy to lose focus on what matters most. For instance, MrBeast still oversees his videos’ creation process; Steve Jobs famously approved every final Apple ad. Founders must maintain involvement in high-leverage activities rather than adopting corporate setups designed for quarterly earnings rather than innovation.
The principle of “fewer but better” applies here: invest in top talent and pay them well because A-players can produce exponentially more output than B- or C-players. In marketing especially, leverage is tremendous—one skilled marketer with an iPhone can achieve 100 million views on a video.
This mindset parallels developers’ career paths: top-tier developers can create products impacting millions (e.g., Google Maps’ code overhaul by one coder). Similarly, exceptional marketers create outsized returns relative to their compensation.
In summary:
- Stay close to critical functions like marketing.
- Focus on high-leverage individuals and activities.
- Prioritize fewer but better team members.
- Embrace giving immense value upfront to attract leads.
- Continuously improve lifetime value (LTV) and customer acquisition efficiency.
By implementing these strategies thoughtfully, businesses can achieve rapid growth while maintaining sustainable operations.
