FILE 00 · THE FRAME · MARKETING SCIENCE FOR $0 → $1M
You love your startup. You haven't proven anybody else does.
Yet you're copying successful startups before yours is.
Best practices were written for companies that already made it. You're building one that's not there yet; the same medicine that keeps a grown company alive will kill a young one. This is the publication that says the part nobody else is willing to say out loud.
THE BASE RATE · 3 IN 4 VENTURE-BACKED COMPANIES NEVER RETURN A DOLLAR. MOST DIED OF SELF-INFLICTED MARKETING. WE PUBLISH THE AUTOPSIES.
LIVEVenture dollars poured into go-to-market before product-market fit, since you opened this page:$0▲est. · ≈8% of 2024 U.S. venture funding ($209B, KPMG Venture Pulse), annualized
Every advertisement you have ever seen was made by a company that already had traction. Which means the marketing that actually starts companies is the one kind almost nobody has witnessed.
“Every company with traction once had none, and its first customers were won with messages addressed to a select few, hidden in plain sight.”
The era of marketing on gut instinct is over. What kills a young company isn't bad tactics; it's the cognitive and structural distortions that make a clear decision nearly impossible before you understand the science. This is the field manual.