17 strategies founders actually ran, ranked by how many ran them
Built from 30 founder interviews on Starter Story (5 Jul–25 Oct 2026). A strategy counts only when the founder said they ran it. Advice doesn't count.
Get the top 3 as how-to playbooks
One PDF per strategy: what the founders did, step by step, with a link to every source video.
Paid social ads that start from proven content
Paying creators to post about your product
X: build in public, ride the trend, write the long post
Written for founders who already have paying customers. It's not a guide to your first users.
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The ranking
Ranked by number of videos, then by the date of the most recent one. Updated 27 Oct 2026.
1
Paid social ads (TikTok, Meta) scaled from creatives that already workedPlaybook
9 videos · latest 25 Oct 2026 · Consumer apps and SaaS
3 and 3= tie on both count and date. X gets the playbook because it is the only one of the two that also shows up in the B2B and prosumer SaaS videos.
How the ranking was built
Every transcript was read in full. A strategy counts for a video only if the founder ran it. Things they only mentioned, planned or recommended don't count.
The same strategy is grouped even when founders name it differently. "Paid UGC" and "influencer revenue share" both count as paying creators to post.
Onboarding and paywall work isn't in the ranking. It helps conversion, but it doesn't bring new people in.
Labels say who ran it in this sample: consumer apps, SaaS (B2B and prosumer tools), or both.
One founder's story is an anecdote, not a benchmark.
Who's writing this
I'm Jorge. I build software products in 90-day sprints, and I've had to price, package and sell what I build. Margin Moves is where I take apart how other software companies make money, so you can use the good moves in yours.
Margin Moves is researched and written with AI, and the fact-check is done with AI too. Every fact about a company is checked against that company's own sources, and I read and approve every piece before it goes out.
If you spot an error, reply to any email or write to [email protected]. If I got it wrong, the correction goes in the next free email, and in the next paid issue if the mistake was there.