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"All" the conventional wisdom would include a solid content marketing strategy. Respectfully, I feel like you buried the lead on this one. Please allow me to

"All" the conventional wisdom would include a solid content marketing strategy. Respectfully, I feel like you buried the lead on this one. Please allow me to highlight the conventional wisdom you ARE following. 1)Nothing buries a bad product faster than good marketing (ahrefs is a great product) 2)Do one thing very well instead of chasing trends (great content marketing) 3)Create genuine value for your audience and they will generate value for you. Great article, I just disagree with the premise.

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Rainymood 8y ago
>1)Nothing buries a bad product faster than good marketing (ahrefs is a great product) I don't get this one, what do you mean exactly?
- rorykoehler 8y ago
  I had to think about it too but I think they mean that a bad product with great marketing will get lots of hits and zero traction.
  - jmatthews 8y ago
    That is the short of it. If you have a polished turd and shine a spotlight on it you will "fail faster" than if you you creep around in the dark. It is still better to fail fast if that is where it will end up anyway. Put another way, good marketing doesn't fix a bad product.(ahrefs is a very good product)
- virgilp 8y ago
  Well, great marketing gets a lot of people interested in your product. Create a high expectations + bad experience combo for a lot of potential customers, and now you got into a very bad position where even if you improve the product, you can't get people to try it out (because all/ most potential customers already did, and were sorely disappointed).
  - abapologist 8y ago
    I think this is inaccurate. One, you can control your exposure while your product is crap. It’s just unlikely you’ll saturate your market before you can improve the product, if indeed your company is capable of improving the product. Additionally, the downside isn’t “customers won’t use us bf they were burned”. It just creates a bump for the sales process to overcome. It’s an impediment to a sale, not a blocker. Finally, before p/m fit, you need to be optimizing for learning over all else. More customers, even if they have a bad experience, brings more feedback. Also, you will have an asset - email list - of people who have signed up because you’re solving a problem they have curiousity / interest in. Look at mongo. They’re now pretty successful by most evaluations, and they did this exact thing. Outside of Hn, very few remember how they over promised and under delivered.

deleted 8y ago

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Rainymood 8y ago

>1)Nothing buries a bad product faster than good marketing (ahrefs is a great product) I don't get this one, what do you mean exactly?

rorykoehler 8y ago
I had to think about it too but I think they mean that a bad product with great marketing will get lots of hits and zero traction.
- jmatthews 8y ago
  That is the short of it. If you have a polished turd and shine a spotlight on it you will "fail faster" than if you you creep around in the dark. It is still better to fail fast if that is where it will end up anyway. Put another way, good marketing doesn't fix a bad product.(ahrefs is a very good product)
virgilp 8y ago
Well, great marketing gets a lot of people interested in your product. Create a high expectations + bad experience combo for a lot of potential customers, and now you got into a very bad position where even if you improve the product, you can't get people to try it out (because all/ most potential customers already did, and were sorely disappointed).
- abapologist 8y ago
  I think this is inaccurate. One, you can control your exposure while your product is crap. It’s just unlikely you’ll saturate your market before you can improve the product, if indeed your company is capable of improving the product. Additionally, the downside isn’t “customers won’t use us bf they were burned”. It just creates a bump for the sales process to overcome. It’s an impediment to a sale, not a blocker. Finally, before p/m fit, you need to be optimizing for learning over all else. More customers, even if they have a bad experience, brings more feedback. Also, you will have an asset - email list - of people who have signed up because you’re solving a problem they have curiousity / interest in. Look at mongo. They’re now pretty successful by most evaluations, and they did this exact thing. Outside of Hn, very few remember how they over promised and under delivered.