It pains me to see so many startups emailing me who have already spent months or even years building a product without thinking about promotion or validating th

It pains me to see so many startups emailing me who have already spent months or even years building a product without thinking about promotion or validating their idea at all before launching. “Launch first, then figure out marketing” is a recipe for disaster. This should be repeated again and again, and I think this is a point missed by many enginers. (Disclaimer: I'm an engineer.) I've seen people spend months (or years) building that perfect website, wait anxiously for the proverbial "launch day," and then be highly discouraged when customers don't magically come. Figuring out who your customers are (and how you are going to get them!) is as important (or even more important) as picking the best framework, optimizing your code, or whatever else we spend time on.