Instagram/video transcript: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DR2V7joiMbG/
Uploader: Startup Archive Posted: 20251204
Caption (from the post)
Tesla famously spends no money on advertising. Instead, Elon’s strategy for Tesla is to: “put all of our money and attention into trying to make the product as compelling as possible.”
As he explains, the key to achieving word of mouth growth is building a product that people love. Simply liking it isn’t good enough.
“I think that really the way to sell any product is through word of mouth. The key is to have a product that people love… If you just like something and it’s ok, you’re not gonna care that much. But if you love it, you’re going to talk about it. And then that generates word of mouth. And that’s basically how our sales [at Tesla] have grown. We don’t spend any money on advertising or endorsements.”
Video source: @mkbhd (2018)
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Transcript (verbatim machine transcription: faster-whisper medium, language en, unedited)
Aside from making great products, how do you get people excited about Tesla? There’s a lot of people I know and that I talk to who are just intrigued and interested and excited about Tesla as a company. The thing I really focus on at Tesla is we really put all of our money and attention into trying to make the product as compelling as possible because I think that really the way to sell any product is through word of mouth. The key is to have a product that people will love. If you’re at a party or touring with friends or whatever, you’ll talk about the things that you love. But if you just like something, it’s okay, you’re not going to care that much, but if you love something… You get the reactions from the highs and the lows, so you’ve got to make sure people really love it. Yeah, if you love it, you’re going to talk and then that will generate word of mouth. That’s basically how our sales have grown. We don’t spend any money on advertising or endorsements, so anyone buys our car, they just bought it because they like the car.