The emerging startup playbook

Virality: Over 50% of your new customer acquisition today is through word-of-mouth, customers are naturally telling their friends and family about your product, and you’ve run a handful of successful experiments that increase this behavior.

Press cycles about million-dollar fund-raises and billion-dollar valuations are short-lived and targeted at aspiring entrepreneurs, not people like your customers. Building your audience that way doesn’t work, because a months-old startup has nothing to say, besides that a few rich people gave them some money. Trust me, I know.