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.

Bought VR headsets for the entire team, even though the product idea had nothing to do with virtual reality.

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 😅