What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve blown startup money on?

At my first startup, I burnt hundreds of dollars on cloud costs, not knowing there's stuff like @Supabase , @AWS Credits, Coolify, etc.

Facebook ads. I looked at the recordings and 70% of all facebook traffic behaves like bots. They scroll all the way down to the footer, then up, then a little bit down and then they close the site. It is crazy. Facebook has created a bot army that prints money for them IMHO ;)

I am blown away when someone spends 5k for a logo and then someone comes up with the Chat GPT-generated version for free and looks way better lol.

Not me, but the CEO used office refreshments as a “productivity hack.” Bought a fancy espresso machine, organic smoothies, and unlimited snacks, only to realize people just wanted to get their work done and leave. All the hype, zero impact. Lesson: Perks only work if the team actually cares, and coffee isn’t culture. 😂

Flipside: what was the absolute best ROI thing that you spent your startup money on?

The most ridiculous thing I’ve blown money on?

Too many SaaS subscriptions - $9 here, $19 there, $49 there… and suddenly you’re bleeding hundreds every month on tools you barely log into.

On the flip side, the best thing I’ve spent money on has been Gamma - it’s been a total game-changer for building decks and sites without overthinking design or code.

Lesson learned: not every “must-have” app is actually a must-have… but when you find the right one, it pays for itself many times over. 😅

“AI influencer campaign.” Easily the worst spend. Most of them turned out to be overrated clickbait machines with armies of bots and non-serious followers. You pay for “millions in reach” and end up with zero real conversions. Lesson learned.

Blew way too much on SaaS subscriptions i never ended up using 😅