I was thrilled to read this article on Business Insider with advice from Sachin Agarwal “Three Things Your Startup Should Put Off As Long As Possible.”

My favorite advice? Do not buy users until you have determined your Lifetime Value of your user, and you have Customer Acquisition Channels with direct costs above zero.

Seriously. Too right. I’m so often asked for customer acquisition plan advice. My response is always to start with SEO and partner marketing. Don’t go down the route of buying users until you can measure they are making you any money, you can measure exactly how they are converting, and you can do organized A/B testing. Usually early phase startups can’t do any of those things. Estimates are just guesses until you have real data.

Focus on building a fabulous product, with great content, and every possible viral link to allow your users to share the love.

Thanks, Sachin Agarwal for words of wisdom.