From 100+ visitors to 0 in 3 days: What running a live-bidding ad marketplace taught me
Hey IH community!
A few days ago, I launched TopBid - a gamified leaderboard where projects bid in real-time to claim the #1 spotlight on the site.
Day 1: Went surprisingly well! Hit 100+ visitors via Twitter outreach.
Days 2 to 4: Crickets. 0 traffic.
The throne is currently held by someone who paid $3, which means taking the #1 spot right now costs just $4. But without consistent incoming traffic, people stop bidding because the ROI drops.
My main key takeaways so far:
Gamified AdTech needs constant traffic "fuel" to keep the bidding momentum alive.
Cold DMs work for initial validation, but don't scale organically.
For those who built attention/ad marketplaces before: How did you solve the cold-start problem when traffic stalled?
P.S. If you want to check the current live leaderboard or steal the #1 spot, it’s live at topbid.learts.dev 👈🏽
