Acquisition approach: product over paid ads

On the podcast, we talk with Ryan Jones about the power of product-driven growth, why traditional marketing strategies often fall short, and the challenges of acquiring users while staying focused on building great products.

Top Takeaways:

✈️ Product is the growth engine
Flighty doesn’t run ads or chase growth hacks. Instead, it builds features that users love enough to share. When the product delights, users do the marketing. Growth follows craft.

📲 Design for shareability
Virality isn’t an accident. Flighty’s most powerful loop came from obsessing over a digital flight log that people are proud to show off, building for moments users want to share, and driving organic reach without paid spend.

🛠️ Stick to your superpower
Try traditional growth tactics, then walk away. Every time the team moved attention from product to marketing, growth stalled. Knowing your edge (and staying there) beats chasing trends outside your zone.

📈 ASO over ads
App Store Optimization remains Flighty’s only paid channel. Beautiful screenshots, clear messaging, and owning key search terms outperform broad ad campaigns and let the product speak for itself.

📵 Say no to distraction
Ignore the conventional playbook: no Facebook ads, no paid UA, no spray-and-pray marketing. Flighty’s team builds what they’d want to use, stays close to user problems, and lets clarity guide the roadmap.

About Ryan Jones: 

🛫 CEO & Co-founder of Flighty.

📱 Ryan leads the product, design, and growth strategy behind Flighty. It is one of the most loved travel apps in the world. He’s built Flighty into a top-ranked app through obsessive attention to detail, viral feature design, and user-first thinking.

💡 “Every time we focused on product, we grew. Every time we chased marketing tactics, we stalled. We just keep building what users love—and they do the rest.”

👋 LinkedIn

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Episode Highlights: 

[0:00] The elevator pitch: giving flyers real-time confidence
[2:14] How Flighty’s digital passport became a viral growth engine
[4:37] The unexpected power users: pilots, flight attendants, and crew
[5:48] Why building product beats running ads (and how Flighty proved it)
[10:03] Designing frictionless sharing for one-to-one and one-to-many moments
[10:49] From failed “Spotify Wrapped” to viral success: the passport playbook
[14:29] Why screenshots are Flighty’s most underrated growth lever
[15:12] Owning App Store search: inside Flighty’s ASO strategy
[17:51] How Flighty landed in Apple keynotes and why it matters less
[19:58] Building for the dynamic island before users knew they wanted it
[21:22] What’s next: exclusive features, new foundations, and staying ahead of copycats