Francisco Lourenço

I've spent most of my career working in growth, marketing, and operations, helping startups build products, find customers, and turn ideas into actual businesses. Somewhere along the way, I started building my own things too. I'm particularly interested in small, weird internet ideas. The kind that make you think, "This is ridiculous. But what if someone actually paid for it?" That's pretty much how Useless Ads happened. The internet is full of advertising platforms promising better reach, more conversions, and incredible returns. I wondered what would happen if I built one that promised absolutely nothing. So I did. For $0.99/week, you get a tiny ad in a rotating directory of 50 spots. You can track views and clicks, but there are no guarantees. No magical growth claims. Just a little rectangle on the internet. What started as a joke became a real product with subscriptions, payments, user accounts, analytics, and paying customers. Apparently, I can't even make a joke without building a SaaS around it. But that's what I enjoy: taking an idea, building something real, putting it in front of strangers, and finding out whether anyone actually cares. I also enjoy sharing the process publicly. The experiments, the numbers, the mistakes, the tiny wins, and the occasional terrible decision. I'm currently growing Useless Ads, exploring other side projects, and seeing how far I can take this whole building-in-public thing. If you're building something weird, ambitious, or completely unnecessary, we'll probably get along. Pay cents. Get a pixel. Expect nothing.