Burned money on agencies twice. What actually works for early-stage growth?

We’re building a very early stage B2C app out of Bengaluru and currently trying to figure out initial traction and growth. And honestly I am on my wit's end with this "marketing" madness.

We’re a tiny team, so we already do a lot ourselves - product, content, ops, community, all of it 😅 But we still need support on digital marketing activities like ASO, growth experiments, performance marketing, etc.

The problem is… we’ve had a pretty terrible experience with agencies so far. A lot of overpromising, generic strategies, little ownership, and honestly very templatised! Thats the last thing you need for your startup.

Wanted to ask fellow founders here:

• Have agencies actually worked for you at an early stage?
• Did you hire freelancers/in-house instead?
• What kind of marketing support gave the best ROI initially?

Would genuinely love to hear real experiences before we burn more money learning the hard way 😭 Or some actually "good" references!