I Changed My Mind About Paid Advertising

Episode 002

For the past six years, I've documented my entrepreneurial journey online.

These videos are my daily journal as I build ZIP Capital, a Pennsylvania-based private lending company. I'll be sharing the wins, mistakes, lessons, and behind-the-scenes decisions that come with building a business.

If you're interested in entrepreneurship, investing, real estate, or simply following the journey, subscribe and come along for the ride.

https://www.zipcapitalfund.com/investment-offering

This video is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered investment, legal, tax, or financial advice. Any discussion of ZIP Capital is intended to share my personal experiences building and operating the business. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investments involve risk, including the possible loss of principal. Any investment opportunities discussed are available only to investors who meet applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

August 14th, 2026, I changed my mind about paid advertising. For years, for the past six years, I did not use paid ads. All of my marketing was organic social media marketing, and I never even paid a social media manager to help me run organic social media marketing. I spent zero dollars on advertising over the past six years. Everything that I had built came from YouTube videos, referrals, relationships, Google reviews, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram content, everything. I would do cold outreach to my Facebook friends and my LinkedIn connections. I made a post every morning. I made a video every day and posted it on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. And I made a long YouTube video once a week, sometimes twice a week, all totally organic, edited by me, recorded by me. I use my phone to make these videos. I use this fancy microphone, $180 microphone, very good microphone. And then I use a couple websites to edit my captions, but it's all done by me. I genuinely, genuinely believed organic content was enough. And I still think that it is today. It's enough to build a solid business. It's enough to build your bookkeeping business up to 20, 40, 60, 80 clients. You certainly can do it. I know for a fact because I did it myself. And I raised almost $7 million in zip capital all for free. Social media, organic marketing. It took a long time, but I was able to do it. So for years, I did not use paid ads. And like I said, organic content still works. I still love it. I'm not totally abandoning organic content. Some of my biggest opportunities have come from my free YouTube videos that I have made over the years. Specifically, I can think of at least two zip capital investors who came from my YouTube channel. It's a really interesting scenario. I was making YouTube videos teaching bookkeepers how to start a business. And so other accountants, other bookkeepers, were of course watching my videos. And I had two specific investors. One invested eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars, another invested six hundred thousand dollars simply because they were bookkeepers and accountants watching my YouTube videos. So in one of the eight hundred and fifty thousand dollar investor, it was a husband and wife. They sold their business, and the wife was handling the finances for the business that they sold. And so the wife was watching my YouTube videos because she was interested in bookkeeping. I think she was even considering starting a bookkeeping business after they sold their other business. They had a big liquidity event, stumbled across $850,000. And because she was watching my videos, learned about zip capital, invested $850,000. The other $600,000 came last year from once again, I think it's the CFO of a company, and the company has extra cash laying around. And so the company invested $600,000 because the CFO was watching my YouTube video. So organic content absolutely works. Some of my biggest opportunities have come from people finding my videos. And the cool thing is, organic content sticks around forever, especially YouTube videos. Paid ads, they're not evergreen like organic content is. You have to continue to pay money to run your ads. So free YouTube videos are great. Every time you see a paid ad, you instantly put up your guard. Someone's trying to sell me something. Who is this guy? What is he trying to sell? I don't want to be interrupted. I want to go back to what I actually want to watch. Nobody actually wants to watch ads. You're forced to watch ads, just like when you watch the Super Bowl, just like when you watch TV, just like whenever you watch YouTube videos or anything else. You're forced just like when you drive down the road and you see a billboard. You don't want to see a billboard. You'd much rather look at the pretty trees and the rolling hills and the nice flowers, but instead, you're forced to look at a billboard. You're forced to see a commercial. Organic builds trust in a way that ads just simply cannot build trust. But I realized I was making a big assumption. Paid ads aren't just about generating leads. I think I used to think that paid ads were just a way to buy customers. I'm gonna spend a hundred bucks and I'm gonna get a customer. I'm gonna spend a hundred bucks and I'm gonna get a customer. Very transactional. But now I see it much deeper than that. Now I'm viewing paid ads actually more so as an opportunity to buy data. I want to know what messages are actually working. And with paid ads, I can be very strategic. I can I can use different hooks, I can use different stories, use different images, different thumbnails, I can actually set up different audiences. So with my paid ads, I can have one ad go to just people in Pennsylvania. I could have one ad go to people all over the country. You can you can say if it you want to target males or females or a different age group, young people, middle-aged, older people. It's really cool how you can start collecting data. And it's also when it comes to data, very important to understand the numbers behind your revenue, your customers. Two very specific numbers. And I learned all this from Alex Hermozzi, of course, he's the marketing guru. There's LTV, lifetime value, and there's CAC, customer acquisition cost or cost to acquire a customer. Same thing. So you need to know the lifetime value of your customer, and you need to learn your CAC, your cost to acquire a customer. As long as your LTV is higher than your CAC, you should be able to run a profitable business, assuming your overhead and your cost of goods are reasonable, right? Makes sense. If it cost $10,000 to acquire a customer, but that customer is going to pay me $50,000, that's amazing. I'll spend $10,000 to make $50,000 all day. Or more simply, I'll spend $100 to make a $500 sale all day, right? That makes sense. But every business is different. Harrisburg Bookkeeping is different from Zip Capital, is different from your business, is different from his business, is different from her business. So you need to understand your numbers. You need to know how much is a customer worth. So, and then you also need to know how much does it cost to acquire a customer? I don't know yet. I know my LTV, I know how much a customer is worth, but I don't know the cost to acquire a customer because it hasn't worked yet. I've been running ads for two weeks, I've spent $3,000, it hasn't worked yet, but I'm tracking my metrics. I know how many investor calls that I've got. And so you need to reverse engineer your paid ads. If it costs me $1,000 to get one phone call, and I know it'll take, I don't know, maybe five phone calls before I get an investor, then I can reverse engineer, and then I can know okay, I just need to spend five thousand dollars, get five phone calls, and then on average, those five phone calls will turn into one investor. Now I don't have those numbers yet because I'm still very new running paid ads, but it's just a good understanding of the type of data, the kind of data that I need to start tracking eventually. So instead of guessing which stories people actually care about, now I can actually measure it. I can put money behind a video, show it to strangers, and see if they watch it. And if they don't, no problem. I know that script or that type of video isn't good. And so it's just a numbers game. You got to experiment, test 20, 30, 40 different ads, and then you find one that works. Think about Old Spice. Remember that commercial with who is it, Terry Cruz, that guy who I don't know, he was promoting Old Spice on TV, everybody loved it. It was that one random advertisement that just went crazy and everybody loved it. And I'm sure Old Spice had been spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, probably more on advertising up until that point. And then, however old, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 years later, they finally had their breakthrough. Just it just takes one advertisement to finally have your breakthrough. But you just have to keep testing, keep trying, keep experimenting. And we're not guessing, we're trying different ideas, and then we're looking at the data, we're measuring what people actually like. It's really, really interesting. I'm having a lot of fun with it. So you can try different things, different hooks, different stories, different images, different videos. It's really cool how I started doing this and why I started doing this. It all happened genuinely because I was open and transparent about my business methods and strategies online. And then I was getting some feedback from a few people, and they were saying, You gotta try paid ads. You gotta try paid ads. And I had been hearing it for years, I've been listening to podcasts, I've been watching videos, I've been hearing success stories of other entrepreneurs, and I don't know, just two weeks ago, it just clicked. I was like, you know what? If I really want to scale zip capital beyond just me, which I do eventually, I don't want to be the only person growing zip capital. If I want to scale exponentially, I'm going to have to do something different. And I feel like maybe, maybe paid ads or some form of paid advertisement, I think probably is the only way to really scale exponentially. You can create a great business by yourself, but if you really want to get to that next level, you're gonna have to either pay other people or pay for advertising or do something. So that's where I am. I'm two weeks into it. I'm brand new, just getting started, but I got feedback on social media. People were giving me some advice, giving me some feedback. And usually, let me just be clear usually the feedback and the advice on the internet is total nonsense. Most of the time, I just ignore it. But sometimes it is really valuable. So I do think there's a lot of benefit to being open and transparent about your methods on the internet. If it's a terrible idea, people will let you know. Don't always 100% take people's advice, don't do what everybody tells you to do. But sometimes, every once in a while, you'll get some really great feedback. So sometimes I really like to tell people what I'm doing, share what I'm doing on the internet, and just see what the people say, see what the comments show. Relationships and mentors and peers can be super beneficial. It's really hard to grow and learn in a vacuum. If you never share what you're doing, if you never talk to other people, if you never have experiences, if you never go anywhere, you're not really gonna learn. You're not really gonna grow. You got to put yourself out there. You got to meet new people, you got to talk about what you're doing, learn new ideas. You can't learn and grow in a vacuum. Now, I'm going to combine organic and paid ads. So I'm not just totally abandoning my organic social media marketing content. I'm going to combine it. Organic is really great. Like I said before, I feel like it's great for building trust. I'm going to use organic content, I think, more so to tell stories, give updates, let people know what I'm doing, let people see what I'm building as Zip Capital, who I am as a person, who I am as a father, as a husband, as a business owner, as a Christian, as a football coach. Organic is great for telling stories, building trust, building your personal brand. And then paid ads are really great for selling and the CTA, the call to action. And I'm really happy about this combination. Now I feel like I can separate it. I can just have my organic content, and it doesn't have to feel like I have to cram in a sales pitch halfway through my organic content. I can just be free to share, to share innocently and just share what's going on. Share a story, build my personal brand, let people see what I'm building at Zip Capital, no strings attached, not trying to sell you anything. And then with the paid ads, then yes, I am trying to sell you something, but that's gonna be hopefully, I'm gonna try to figure out how to make it work. That's gonna be separate. I'm gonna have my organic content where I'm just sharing stories. I'll still give zip capital updates, I'll still let people know a new loan that I just funded or a new investor just joined Zip Capital. But hopefully the really salesy stuff can just be from the paid ads. And then the organic content can just be designed long-term, building those trusts, that trust and those relationships. Either way, if you're a business owner and you're trying to avoid creating content, it's inevitable. It is unavoidable. Whether you're running paid ads or creating organic content, either way, you still have to make a video. Either way, you still have to write copyright or create a flyer or design a billboard or take a picture or create an infographic, whether it's free organic social media or whether it's paid ads, whether it's a flyer in the mail, no matter what, a TV commercial, a billboard on the side of the road, maybe a page in a magazine, no matter what, you're still creating content. So if you're a business owner, either you have to do it or you got to pay somebody to do it. There's no way around it. I don't think. Maybe you can start a small business, maybe you can grow a small business, but eventually, if you want to grow, you're going to have to create content. I'm pretty sure. Not a hundred percent of the time, but let's be real. At some point, if you want to grow, you got to spread the news, you got to tell people. And even creating content, even if you're going, even if you're going to an in-person event, you're probably going to have a booth. And in that booth, you're probably going to want to have some sort of banner or sign. That's creating content, right? You're going to have to design the banner, design the sign. And then you're going to probably have a little printout of a little flyer at your booth. So no matter what, no matter what you're doing in your business, you got to create content. You're either going to spend time or you're going to spend money, or maybe both. So with paid ads, of course, spend money. Hiring the social media manager, spend money. Hiring an employee, head of marketing, spend money. Or do it all yourself and create organic content, you spend time. You're either going to spend time or you're going to spend money. A lot of times it's both. And it's not just the content. You also need a landing page or a website or a funnel. The ads are great, but the ads, in and of themselves, that's not the end. The ads are just the beginning. The ads encourage you to click somewhere. Click learn more. Message me now. Call me now. You need some sort of whenever they click learn more, you need to have a landing page. And so before I ran my first ad, I spent a few days trying to optimize my website because that is where the ads were sending my leads. Very important. You got to have a website. You got to have a landing page, some sort of funnel. Very important. Very I'm not good at this stuff. I'm actually my website's actually terrible. I should probably pay somebody more money to fix my website. I tried to update it myself. Take a look at it. Let me know what you think. It's zipcapitalfund.com and check out the investment offering page. It's horrible. I really need to pay somebody to fix it because I'm just I am incapable of making a website look good. It is just, I don't know, it's impossible for me. I'm just I'm so bad at it. You can't give up after a few weeks. Boy, did I want to. I spent $3,000, zero new investors. I really wanted to give up. But I teach it all the time. It's the exact same thing with organic content. You need to commit long term. We're in this for six months. If you start posting on Facebook and two weeks go by, of course you're not going to get a new client. Of course you're not going to get an investor. I've been paying for ads for two weeks. Of course it's not going to work in two weeks. You got to commit long term. It's so hard. I wanted to give up, but no, I have to practice what I teach. Of course, it won't work in the beginning. You're brand new. Duh. It shouldn't work. It would be weird if it did work in the beginning. You got to do something. Doesn't matter what you do. Paid ads, organic, flyers, billboard, TV commercial, in-person, networking events, doesn't matter. Do something, stick with it, and then do more of it. And then, of course, learn. Look at the data, look at the analytics, learn what's working, and then try to make it better. Don't just do the same thing over and over again for six months, expecting a different result. Do more of it and then learn and then make it better. Don't try something new too soon. Really good advice. Don't try something new too soon because you don't know if the old thing is working or not. I three months at least, six months, try, try, try, stick with it, do more, get better, learn, look at the data, look at the analytics. Don't try something new too soon. Biggest mistake you can make when it comes to marketing and advertising. Seriously. My strategy just always have paid ads running indefinitely. That's kind of where I am right now. I'm just going to always have paid ads running. Think about Geico, McDonald's, Edward Jones. I see their ads all the time. They've been around for a hundred years and they haven't stopped running ads. As long as I can still utilize investor capital, as long as I still have deal flow, I'm just going to keep running ads. That's kind of where my head is right now. I don't know. Catch me in two months, see if I still feel the same way. But for as long as it's going to continue to work, I'm just going to keep doing it. I decided to do it all myself. I didn't hire an agency. I pretty much just worked with my trusty good fellow friend ChatGPT. And I would just take a screenshot of the Facebook ads manager and paste it into ChatGPT and say, what do I do next? I probably can't do it. I'm definitely not doing it better now than an advertising agency. Like if I hired somebody else, an ad agency or some sort of marketing expert, for sure they could do it better than me. But I believe I will absolutely work harder and care way more than some outsourced independent contractor would ever care about my business. Right? I feel like that's probably the case for almost everybody. Like nobody cares about your business as much as you do. So here's my here's my plan, here's my philosophy. I'm gonna learn the process, I'm gonna learn how to run paid ads. It's not gonna be perfect, it's probably not even gonna be as good as if I hired a marketing agency, but I can always hire somebody later, and I'll never lose the knowledge that I gained. That's my theory, that's my philosophy. So I'm learning how to do it, and then in three months, in six months, if I want to give up, I'll hire somebody, and at least I'll know how to manage the independent contractor. If I hired them from day one, I would have no idea what they're doing. So I'm gonna spend six months, maybe waste some money, probably waste money, but learn really valuable, really valuable lessons and knowledge gained. Let me wrap this up. I'm not trying to become a marketing guru. This is important because I'm not chasing clickbait. I'm not trying to create an entertainment channel. I'm not trying to entertain. I'm trying to educate. I'm trying to educate, I'm trying to spread awareness about what I'm doing and how it could be a good fit for somebody else. I'm not changing who I am. I'm still creating organic social media marketing content. I'm still trying to be authentic and genuine. I'm I'm taking the same authentic stories and I'm just trying to help more people see them, more people who might not have seen my organic content. That's kind of the whole point of putting money behind your ads. It's the same stuff, but now I just want to push it out to more people who might not have seen it otherwise. I think that's a really important distinction. Okay, let's wrap this up. Entrepreneurship means constantly updating your beliefs. One thing that I've realized over the last few years is that entrepreneurship is really just a series of constantly changing your mind. I changed my mind about bookkeeping. I changed my mind about private money lending. Now I'm changing my mind about advertising. The goal isn't necessarily to always be right. I make mistakes, I learn, I evolve, I adapt, I grow, I overcome. I am not always right. Maybe in the moment I felt like it was right, but the goal is to always be improving and learning. So I'm not trying to be right a hundred percent of the time. I'm just trying to experiment, learn new things, try new things, do some things right, make some mistakes, learn from my mistakes, and get better over time. Constantly improving, constantly learning.