Acquisition flywheels

There are only a handful of acquisition motions — Paid, Content, Virality, and Sales. Within each motion are many channels. As said before, some channels can spin into a flywheel if the right conditions are in place.

Conditions for a flywheel outcome

A channel can only compound into a true flywheel if three things are true:

• High scale (ceiling): There’s enough market depth to sustain reinvestment and growth.
• High velocity: Inputs turn into outputs quickly enough to accelerate the cycle.
• Low leakage: Value created (users, revenue, content) actually cycles back into the system instead of leaking out.

We think of the channels with the potential for these conditions to be met as “flywheel-capable.”

High Scale

A prerequisite for a flywheel is scale ceiling — the ability to keep reinvesting before saturation or broken unit economics cap growth.

• Paid platforms (Meta, TikTok, Google) expose you to massive audiences.
• Virality can unlock similar scale once it’s spinning, if the market is large enough.
• Search offers high scale when query volume is big enough and competitive dynamics are perfect.

High Velocity

Velocity matters because the shorter the lag between input → output → reinvestment, the faster the loop accelerates.

• Paid often has the highest velocity — results in days, not months.
• Virality starts slow (needs critical mass), but velocity skyrockets once the loop is turning.
• Content and sales usually move slower, but velocity can still increase with tighter funnels or better product-market fit.

Leakage

Even if scale and velocity exist, flywheels stall if too much “fuel” leaks out of the system.

• Retention leakage: New users churn before they generate referrals or revenue.
• Monetization leakage: Revenue captured isn’t enough to reinvest at the same pace.
• Activation leakage: Users sign up but never take the actions that power the loop.

Flywheel potential by motion (at a glance)