At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, industry leaders gathered to tackle this exact dilemma. Elia Wallen, the founder and CEO of corporate travel platform Engine; Grant Lee, the founder and CEO of AI-driven presentation software Gamma; and Crystal Huang, a general partner at venture capital firm Google Ventures, took the stage to share practical insights, hard-earned lessons, and strategic advice on how modern startups can effectively attract and retain customers in a hyper-competitive market.

In the current startup ecosystem, young artificial intelligence companies like Cluely and Instinct are managing to build massive audiences not just through their technological products, but also through their founders’ colorful and highly visible online presences. For many entrepreneurs, social media can easily look like a magical, silver-bullet solution for reaching early customers with minimal friction. However, founders who want to elevate their business strategy with modern digital marketing have to approach it with a high degree of strategy and intention, according to Gamma’s Grant Lee.

Gamma, a company that builds and sells AI-powered presentation software, managed to scale its operations exponentially by deploying a clever social media strategy built around a network of micro-influencers through its "Gambassador" ambassador program. The company adopted this targeted plan long before influencer-based marketing was widely regarded as a tried-and-true playbook for smaller B2B and software companies. Over time, that foundational strategy helped propel Gamma to a staggering multi-billion-dollar valuation, alongside soaring annual recurring revenue figures.

Yet, Lee warns that simply giving digital creators a platform, shipping them a product, and telling them to promote your brand online does not automatically translate to sustainable sales or long-term growth. There is significantly more tactical nuance required to make influencer marketing genuinely effective.

If you have a product that can serve many different customer segments, verticals, or specific use cases, Lee explained, you want to selectively engage creators who can directly target each one of those distinct groups. Whether you are looking at professionals working in specialized consulting roles or marketing leaders who create all the slide decks for their chief marketing officers, there are numerous distinct audience segments that a growing startup might want to pursue, and influencers must be matched accordingly.

Lee pointed out that startup founders sometimes fall into the trap of treating creator marketing or influencer partnerships as a passive, "set-it-and-forget-it" mechanism. Instead, he argues that companies are far better served by spending a substantial amount of time working closely with these creators. If a creator fundamentally does not understand how to clearly articulate the unique value proposition of your product, it simply does not matter how much money you spend on the campaign—the initiative is ultimately going to fall flat and fail to convert.

At the same time, the broader effectiveness of social media depends heavily on the specific industry, target demographic, and business model of the company in question. Other, more traditional ways of reaching customers can often be just as effective—if not significantly more so—than the latest viral digital trend.

Elia Wallen knows this dynamic firsthand. His company, Engine, which manages complex lodging and travel bookings for midsize businesses, bootstrapped its way to $150 million in travel bookings before ever taking on any outside venture capital funding. Crucially, they achieved this impressive milestone with virtually no visible social media strategy whatsoever. For Wallen, old-school, traditional sales tactics can prove far more useful and reliable than hoping for a positive TikTok video to spark organic demand.

Wallen noted that his team leaned heavily into direct outreach, attending industry events and engaging in what he calls smiling and dialing. Engine still employs a dedicated team of people who regularly pick up the phone to talk directly with prospective clients. According to Wallen, a lot of people who did not grow up with that style of outreach, or who simply do not understand how it operates, mistakenly write it off as outdated or ineffective. But the reality is that it still works remarkably well.

It is undoubtedly hard work, and Wallen observed that many modern companies simply refuse to do it or do not know how to execute it properly. By abandoning direct outreach, however, those businesses are missing out on a very large and lucrative offline client base. Emphasizing the enduring power of direct communication, Wallen bluntly noted that the phone still works.

To illustrate the value of creative, offline engagement, Wallen shared a memorable in-person tactic that Engine deployed during its scrappy early days. The company actually hired a professional magician named David to perform close-up magic tricks for prospective clients at crowded industry events, drawing crowds and encouraging them to visit Engine’s exhibition booth. The anecdote served as a clear reminder that old-fashioned personal engagement and human connection can work just as well, if not better, than the latest digital social media growth hacks.

Once a startup successfully acquires a customer through whatever channel it chooses, the focus must immediately shift toward retention and deepening engagement. Crystal Huang, who has managed scores of early-stage startups and shepherded them through the perilous journey to long-term success, emphasized that an immense amount of future business value can be derived by closely examining how existing customers actually use the product.

Huang posed a series of fundamental diagnostic questions for founders to ask themselves: Can you look deep into your product’s usage data and figure out if user engagement is recurring, if activity levels are steadily increasing, and if those customers are actively referring their friends and colleagues to the platform?

According to Huang, these critical insights often reveal themselves clearly in early usage patterns and retention cohorts. Furthermore, founders should look for the emergence of genuine superfans—individuals who are so passionate about the utility of the product that they actively want to work at the company, enthusiastically promote the brand across their personal networks, and become closely attached to the company’s mission. Ultimately, Huang stressed, startups must build deliberate mechanisms to foster and cultivate these passionate product evangelists.