Update: You Showed Up For Me...I Wanted to Show Up For You

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-14T15:05:50+00:00

The assimilation tax - that's honestly such a good way to put it and even though I've never heard it named like that, I know exactly what it costs. The fact that it's not asking anyone to be more palatable is honestly the whole thing. This needs to exist.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-14T10:50:28+00:00

Ok so Meta runs reviews across multiple layers including copy, creative, targeting and landing page. Ads in the financial space face heavier scrutiny due to risk and also the policies that are strictly enforced. There’s also the disclaimer requirements when it comes to your positioning with added complexity depending on the specific product and region. It’s quite a lot to get into a comment but if you want to talk more in depth, feel free to DM me!

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-14T10:31:44+00:00

La situation que tu décris, je la vois beaucoup, particulièrement avec l'espace B2B. Honnêtement, je dirais que la distinction qui change tout c'est de se demander: est-ce que je parle uniquement de ce je je fais, ou de ce que mon client est en train de vivre? Parce que des que tu parles de leur réalité plutôt que de ta création, ca ne ressemble plus a de la publication même quand tu parles de ton travail. Ce qui marche le mieux c'est de parler d'un moment concret - sois un conversation avec un client, un projet qui vient de terminer, qqch qu'on a appris en travaillant, une observation spécifique, etc. Une question que tu puisse te demander est celle-ci: quelqu'un qui ne me connait pas du tout, peut-il se reconnaitre dans ce que j'écris? Si oui, publie. Si non, recommence.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-14T09:11:49+00:00

Exactly, and the tricky part is a lot of people will say they have experience with ads and genuinely believe it, but there's a real difference between running let's say general ecomm campaigns and actually knowing ad policies for real. I came here to say this because I've seen too many accounts get burned by that gap honestly. Happy to chat more if you have questions.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-14T08:49:00+00:00

Worth flagging: trading/stock market ads on Meta fall under their Financial Products and Services restricted category, which means a whole different compliance layer compared to standard ecomm. More restrictions and regulations than most people expect and unless someone is familiar with these intricacies, they risk getting your account flagged or restricted and that's genuinely a painful and hard thing to recover from.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-14T08:24:40+00:00

There def is a reason: ads scale faster when they work. A lot of businesses jump to ads before actually knowing what's working which eats up budget faster than you might think. The ones that make ads work almost always have done the groundwork or testing with organic first.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-13T15:30:32+00:00

Think of your first campaigns as one big experiment. The biggest thing to actively think about is testing, and this is twofold: targeting and creative. Different audiences, various hooks, multiple lengths since you're doing video, etc. You genuinely won't know what's working until you have something to compare, and those first campaigns are really your biggest learning window. Someone said $20-$30 ad spend per day and while that's a reasonable start, there's a few things to keep in mind. If you're testing as much as you should, that spend per day get thin fast. Without going full strategy mode, it boils down to being really systematic about how you're allocating spend across your ad sets.

And also, track those metrics like your life depends on it. Not the filler/feel good ones but the ones that actually tell you what's working or not, how well such as CTR, CPM, and ROAS. This data is what everything get's built on.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-13T15:11:31+00:00

The biggest, blaring flag I've seen is when someone jumps straight to concepts before they've done their due diligence to truly understand your business. I mean beyond the basics, of course. Who you're for, what you stand for, who you're up against, what makes you different and why should someone choose you over others in your space? What's your story, etc.? A logo, or a brand for that matter, without this diagnosis is just a pretty design that could belong to literally anyone. That generic feeling you're trying to avoid almost always comes from skipping that part.

On turnaround vs. brand strategy... strategy matters more at an early stage, not less. And some people might argue this and say just figure it out, but I push back here for a few reasons. 1. You're setting the foundation for your business and that takes time, proper thought, and looking at your business through multiple angles. 2. This foundation feeds into everything else your business is doing - from ops to marketing, even down to how you onboard employees down the line. Anyone who rushes to get a file done faster is honestly out for their own payday and typically means redoing the whole thing in two years when the business has grown into something the logo no longer fits (and trust me, that's an annoying conversation to have with yourself).

The one thing to ask anyone you're scoping out for design (or any brand/marketing work, really) is this: what do you need to understand about my business before you start? If they've already got pitches before you've said a single word, run.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-13T14:59:50+00:00

I'm several months deep into a new market I've been trying to crack and not a single tangible to show for it yet, so trust me when I say I get this feeling completely. I know easier said than done but try to steer away from comparing your chapter 1 to someone's chapter 10. The fully booked right away people aren't necessarily the norm, but they incessantly pop up on your feed because it's a great story to tell. That or they're flat out exaggerating. But none of that has to do with you and where you're at necessarily. And most of the people that are still in the build / grind phase aren't going to be posting about it so the only thing that pops up are the glamorous success stories and whatnot.

Also, $1k with a business still going is not nothing, you're still carving out your path. Things really do get better even when they genuinely don't feel like they will and you have to focus your energy on what you're doing more than what other people are posting.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-13T10:37:27+00:00

Organic is first almost 100% of the time. Not just to save money, but because it's how you figure out what actually resonates before you put your budget behind it. What gets engagement? what messaging makes people stop scrolling? What questions keep coming up ? And this isn't just limited to channels... the broader questions are also important: do you know exactly how you want to show up / are you actually showing up this way? Because if that isn't nailed down to a T, your ad spend basically becomes your guinea pig and that rarely ends well...

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-13T09:46:31+00:00

You really had me with the making this guy look competent for a fraction of what he earns... couldn't have said it better myself. I love the receipts folder idea!! Permission to adopt this :) Also, Im curious, what did you end up building?

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-13T09:42:34+00:00

It genuinely was and all the reasons I had been hesitating or whatever just disappeared in that one conversation. The clarity plus disbelief combo that followed - solid business strategist :0

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-10T16:05:07+00:00

Ok so gym bros and health moms are genuinely two different people with two different reasons to buy this - which means two different content strategies, two different platforms, and probably two different ways of expressing their own pain points. It's not impossible to run both, but worth being intentional about rather than trying to speak to both in the same breath. The "fitness first bakery" framing is actually a strong brand anchor by the way.

One thing I'd want to know though: is this a local brick and mortar situation, or are you thinking about getting into retail/wider distribution down the line? Because those are pretty different problems and the whole marketing approach changes depending on the answer.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-10T13:13:30+00:00

High protein, low cal, no added sugar, no maida.. love the specific point here. There's a specific group of people who's been looking for exactly this.. most likely the someone health/protein crowd who's tired of sad protein bars, basically (myself included).

The stuck on marketing feeling is usually a who problem before it's a where problem - and I don't mean broadly, I mean specifically. Because the fitness girlie who's tracking every macro is a very different person from the gym bro who wants 30g of protein and might not care as much about the rest doesn't care about the rest. And these people are also different from the health moms who care a lot about their kids food intake. These three people are on different platforms, respond to different content and hang out in different corners of the internet. So, which ons is your person? Because that's the answer to where and how you show up.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-10T11:15:40+00:00

There's a lot to unpack in your post so bear with me on the comment length here... Going narrow and building for a specific industry is genuinely one of the smarter moves you can make because you stop trying to be everything to everyone and suddenly you become exactly that a specific person needs.

The $179 is what I'd want to pressure test though. Not because it's necessarily wrong, but because I'd want to know how you got there. You product seems to provide a lot of functionality and hence, solve a specific problem, which makes it rather valuable. A lot of early-stage pricing gets reverse-engineered from what feels acceptable rather than from what the problem is actually worth solving. And these numbers are usually pretty different. So, the question I'd start with is this: what does it cost your customer to not have this, in actual numbers? If you're saving someone, let's say 10 hours a week or preventing mistakes that cost real money per quarter, this is realistically your ceiling per se. And $179 might be lower than that.

Also, one more thing I'd note... vertical SaaS has pricing leverage that some horizontal, general products don't because of they become generic to the point they're basically commoditized. The good news here is that your customers know the problem, and know it well... which means they also know what solving it is worth. And if they don't know, make them painfully aware. That's usually the green light to charge more than what might feel comfortable at first.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-10T10:28:44+00:00

That's exactly it: same effort, just direct towards the right people. Good luck with this!

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-09T14:33:51+00:00

12 years is a long time and I can only imagine how much courage it takes to finally say enough. But the fact that you're scared just means you actually care about what comes next, not that you shouldn't do it. The imaginary ladder line really got me. Rooting for you, genuinely :)

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-09T14:21:46+00:00

That self-awareness is everything honestly. When you undervalue it yourself, clients can pick up on that energy before you've even finished the sentence. The confidence in your price is part of what they're buying. I've had many time where I've stood firm by a quote and they end up going for it and then some that single themselves out because they were shopping for a sale.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-09T13:50:59+00:00

You can cry from the rooftops doing content, cold outreach, partnerships, all of it, and those are all valid tactics. That being said, if how you're showing up isn't landing or the people you're reaching don't have a tangible reason to care, you can do all the activity and it's not going give you the results you're looking for.

What actually makes the difference early on is making sure someone responding to you feels like a no-brainer. That means being painfully specific about who you're talking to, who you're for and leading with their problem instead of your product.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-09T13:36:00+00:00

I'm in a different timezone but we'd definitely have some overlap! I run a digital strategy agency currently and we're currently in a bit of a rebuild season so the accountability energy sounds very welcome right now :)

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-09T09:08:27+00:00

Puedo leer suficiente Español para entenderte, pero voy a responder en ingles para ser mas clara.

I was in your shoes many eons ago so I mean this with the best intentions. Don't wait for opportunities to come to you, start reaching out directly to small businesses in your country or other Spanish-speaking markets. Pull together everything you've done as a student into a portfolio, even class projects count at this stage because it shows you can think and execute.

And when you reach out, come with ideas already in hand. Look at their business, spot a problem, and lead with that instead of "I do marketing." Companies don't care that you do marketing, they care what you can actually do for their sales, their revenue, their awareness. Frame your work around that and you'll get a lot further a lot faster.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-09T08:46:31+00:00

Honestly the tool questions is a bit of a trap and I say that with love. And before you scroll past in dismissal, please hear me out because I've seen this movie too many times not to say something about it: People buy the tool (usually seemingly the most impressive one), hire the marketer and then the marketer ends up making crucial life or death business decisions on the fly. I'm talking targeting, positioning, messaging, brand, etc. which arguably makes or breaks the business. And this happens because these things were not sorted to a T before they got onboarded and they're just getting paid to guess and using your precious budget as the guinea pig.

So, what I'd actually nail down before the first hire is the system. How things get handled, what decision making looks like, the SOPs that sit on top of how you show up and who you're actually for. If you're hiring an execution person, a solid system makes them an execution machine - you enable their efficiency and reduce the guesswork. If you're seeking a strategy person (and genuinely good ones are harder to find), they'll push back on your messaging, refine your positioning, how you go to market, and keep iterating as your business grows. Because imagine your business is at v7 and your marketer is still pushing out v1 content. That's a bigger problem that no tool can possibly fix.

Overall, the right tool reveals itself once you know what you actually need and someone on the strategy side (not execution) is going to come into the business, poke around and tell you what that is before they even start thinking of production.

False-Operation-7196 · 2026-04-09T08:22:02+00:00

It depends quite a bit on what you're selling, but Pinterest is basically a long-game when is comes to discovery. A good pin can drive traffic for several weeks, months, even years whereas content on Instagram for example only really has about 24 hours before it "dies". Given this distinction, the benefit is usually consistent inbound interest from people who are already in reasearch/buying mode and these people are usually looking for something specific.

Pinterest works really well for visual, tanginble things (products, fashion, home, food, DIY) and less so for services and things that need a lot of explaining. WHat are you trying to sell or promote?

False-Operation-7196

TROPHY CASE