Startups Don’t Need to Go Viral to Win Customers

The Real Challenge: Acquiring and Retaining Early Customers

Landing your first customers is one of the toughest hurdles in business. Even when startups manage to generate early interest, there’s no guarantee those customers will stick around. At TechCrunch Disrupt last week, three industry leaders—Elia Wallen, founder and CEO of travel startup Engine; Grant Lee, founder and CEO of Gamma; and Crystal Huang, general partner at Google Ventures—shared their strategies for attracting and retaining customers.

The Social Media Mirage

In today’s landscape—where young AI companies like Cluely and Instinct build large audiences not only through their products but also through their founders’ vibrant online personas—social media can appear to be a magic bullet for reaching early customers. However, founders looking to strengthen their business strategy with modern marketing must be strategic, according to Lee.

Gamma, which sells AI-powered presentation software, scaled its business exponentially using a social media strategy that deployed influencers through its Ambassadors (or “Gambassador”) program. The company adopted this approach before influencer-based marketing became a proven tactic for smaller companies, eventually reaching a multi-billion-dollar valuation. (By 2026, influencer marketing has matured into a standard channel, but the fundamentals of execution remain critical.)

Influencer Marketing Is Not “Set It and Forget It”

Simply giving influencers a platform and telling them to promote your brand doesn’t automatically translate to sales, Lee cautioned. There’s more to it than that.

“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 said. “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 noted that some founders treat creator or influencer marketing as a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor. “I think you’re better served by really spending a lot of time with these creators, 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,” he added.

Sometimes the Phone Still Works Best

The effectiveness of social media depends largely on the type of business. Other customer acquisition methods can be just as effective—if not more so.

Wallen would know. His company Engine, which manages lodging and travel bookings for midsize businesses, bootstrapped its way to $150 million in bookings before taking any outside funding. They also had no visible social media strategy at all. For Wallen, traditional sales tactics can be far more useful than a positive TikTok video.

“We did events and we smiled and dialed,” said Wallen. “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 added: “The phone still works.”

Wallen also shared an in-person tactic his company deployed during its scrappy early days: hiring a magician named David to perform tricks for prospective clients at events and encourage them to visit Engine’s booth. In short, old-fashioned personal engagement can work just as well—if not better—than the latest social media tricks.

The Bottom Line

As we move into 2026, the pressure to go viral remains strong, but the evidence is clear: startups don’t need viral moments to win customers. Whether through strategic influencer partnerships with deep creator collaboration or simply picking up the phone, the key is understanding your audience and investing in genuine, sustained engagement. Social media is a tool—not a guarantee—and traditional sales tactics still hold significant power.

via TechCrunch