7 ms·

> The way you get lots of users is to make the product really great. That is wrong – or, at the very least, incomplete. "Build it and they will come" is the dr

by adwn 7y ago

> The way you get lots of users is to make the product really great. That is wrong – or, at the very least, incomplete. "Build it and they will come" is the dream and misconception of every programmer who's talented at software development but not at sales. Hell, this is the number one advice of every business how-to book ever: You can't rely on people finding out about your great product by chance, you need to put in the work and sell it! > Then people will not only use it but recommend it to their friends [...] That's not how it works for B2B software, and only rarely for B2C. Usually, if a product is successful, then as a result of good marketing (a good product ist somewhat necessary, but not sufficient).

going_to_800 7y ago
If the product is great(not only the software, but support, vision, market fit, etc), you need a minimum base of users until it takes off, doesn't matter is B2C or B2B, people will talk.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 7y ago
100% right, and the corollary of this is: you don't actually need to make a great product, if your sales&marketing game is good enough. Or, in other words, a lot of successful business - including startups - is exactly the "test hacking" PG urges founders to unlearn. I'm honestly surprised by this essay arguing that "hacking the test" is the wrong approach in startups/business. "Hacking the test" is essentially what your marketing is supposed to do. These "non-authoritarian" tests like selling things are just as hackable as school tests; you just have to discover how the system really operates. The whole authoritarian/non-authoritarian split doesn't carve reality at the joints, IMO. Football match is really an authoritarian test - it tests who wins under the game rules, which are given from the top. It may be hard to hack, but that's because passing that test is usually synonymous with the terminal goals of the test takers - i.e. they want to win the game. You'll note however that, once money gets involved, people are sometimes made to deliberately lose games; in these scenarios, there are usually other people involved who are absolutely hacking the test. The best way I've found to carve the reality at the joints is to talk about terminal and instrumental goals. Learning useful things isn't the terminal goal for most students, getting a good career is (and/or not pissing off parents by getting bad grades). So I'm ultimately surprised that PG argues that building good things, not hacking the test, is how you win the startup game - I would think most of the startups have products as instrumental goals; the exit is the terminal goal. And building a great product isn't the best way to achieve that goal.
- derefr 7y ago
  > you just have to discover how the system really operates. One might say that, by analogy, this is like saying you cheated on a test by studying. “Learning how the system really operates” isn’t hacking; it’s the thing you’re formally setting out to do as a business!
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    The hacking starts once you learn that building great products isn't the only, or even the best, way to create a successful business.
- skybrian 7y ago
  What about marketing churn? If people try your product and have a bad experience, maybe they won't try anything else you offer either? It seems like the product at least needs to be somewhat decent?
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    A lot of companies seem fine with churn, as long as they can acquire new customers faster, or if they form an oligopoly (banks and telcos come to mind). In general yes, the product has to meet some minimum bar of decency. How high? Depends on a lot of factors. Note the popularity of business models involving some kind of lock-in - e.g. network effect, holding data hostage. Those are all attempts at hacking around the need for a decent product.
- codesections 7y ago
  > I would think most of the startups have products as instrumental goals; the exit is the terminal goal. Depressing, if true. I would hope that most people have a product that they want to build, and more money is an instrumental goal that lets them build it better. For example, I'd expect someone who loves to code to have software they want to write, and want enough money to allow them to do so—as opposed the executive who loves money and views writing software as the best way to get it. I'm not convinced that any great work was ever crafted by someone who was primarily crafting for instrumental reasons. But you're probably right, and that's probably a big part of what's so toxic about startup culture these days.
jstummbillig 7y ago
As an example, can you name a b2b or b2c product that you feel is truly great but overlooked?
- graycat 7y ago
  B2B: (1) The scripting language Rexx. (2) The text editor KEdit with macro language KEXX much like Rexx. (1) and (2) are far and away my two most important tools in computing, from IBM mainframes to PCs, DOS, OS/2, Windows, and my startup on Windows 7 64 bit Professional on an AMD FX-8350 64 bit 8 core processor at 4.0 GHz with Microsoft's .NET. E.g., I typed in the 100,000 lines of text for the software for my startup using KEdit and never an IDE (integrated development environment) -- KEDIT worked FINE! (3) LINPACK. (4) Microsoft's PhotoDraw of about year 2000. (5) Robocopy. (6) Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Tools and their backup and recovery software. (7) D. Knuth's TeX (not LaTeX, just TeX).
  - OldHand2018 7y ago
    > (5) Robocopy. Ha! We use robocopy at work because IT refuses to fix our internal network. We can reliably reproduce an NFS mount dropping off the network around the 12th GB of a large file and the only answer is "stop bugging us and use robocopy". All it does is turn a 30-40 minute process into a 3-4 hour process.
  - Pxtl 7y ago
    > Robocopy I don't get ms. There's a good kind of copy and a bad kind of copy. Why is the bad kind the default?
    - derefr 7y ago
      The bad kind keeps a legacy API that allows batch scripts from 1985 to work. In every modern OS, the system packages—and most installable first-party packages in a package ecosystem—are there to make the (legacy) software you might install “just work”, not to provide the best experience for users using those packages directly. Users, for their own needs, are expected to install their own tools and runtimes, or to consume collections of them through “toolchain environments” provided by software like IDEs.
ziadbc 7y ago
"Make people want something that is actually junk." doesn't have quite the same ring to it, nor does it sound remotely more plausible. Presumably the 10% weekly growth that YC and PG advocate as the default growth metric isn't expected to be in the absence of sales but the contrary, sales plus anything that works that is ethical and not some ponzi scheme. He provided examples via the link to http://paulgraham.com/ds.html http://paulgraham.com/ds.html where he describes stripe founders engaging in zealous activities many would call sales despite being the type of startup that could have leaned back and had ample demand.
- blowski 7y ago
  > "Make people want something that is actually junk." doesn't have quite the same ring to it, nor does it sound remotely more plausible. It certainly doesn't have the same ring to it, but it's an extremely successful business model.
- brlewis 7y ago
  I skimmed that essay. Zealous activities to make existing users happy seemed to be the emphasis. It's possible that there were zealous activities for acquiring users mentioned somewhere, but I missed them because they were less emphasized.
Gatsky 7y ago
Yeah it’s a matter of emphasis. When you are starting up, not having a great product is your biggest problem by far. Also your attitude, if widely applied, would result in a world filled with useless crap with brilliant marketing.
- hef19898 7y ago
  What makes you think the world isn't? It hardly ever is the best service or product that wins, but the one that sells best. And that is, to a huge degree, marketing. Maybe crap is to harsh, but not the best products? I certainly would sign that sentiment.
  - Gatsky 7y ago
    You are perhaps too optimistic. Just heard a scooter start up called ‘Unicorn’ went bust without making a single scooter, losing all the money people gave them for pre-orders. All the money was spent on facebook ads. This is the purest application of marketing, where there is no product, let alone a crap one.
    - detaro 7y ago
      context: https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/7/21000094/unicorn-electric-scooter-shut-down-refund-tile https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/7/21000094/unicorn-electric...
jakobegger 7y ago
> "Build it and they will come" is the dream and misconception of every programmer (...) Well, the amount of marketing required strongly depends on the quality of and demand for your product. I built a software product and launched it with very very minimal marketing (I emailed a blogger and published it on a mailing list). People liked my app so much that I had a 1000 downloads within a few weeks (which I consider decent for a somewhat niche app). Working on that app has since become my full time job, and I do very minimal marketing. Maybe I could make more revenue if I focussed more on marketing, but to be honest I'm pretty amazed how well word of mouth advertising works.
- cm2012 7y ago
  No. I consult with B2B startups on marketing and have seen the internal data for 20+ B2B tech companies. If anything, the best products with the lowest churn have less referrals, since people don't want their competitors to have the competitive advantage the product provides.
  - jakobegger 7y ago
    > people don't want their competitors to have the competitive advantage (...) That sounds like a very cut-throat business. In my target audience, most people are happy to share how they work and which tools they use. I even occasionally see random people recommending my product online (which makes me very happy)
    - cm2012 7y ago
      Generally, different VC firms give a lot of money to similar companies at the same time. In one vertical, I worked with the same company for three years. CPC for the same keywords doubled every year for all 3 years, when the unit economics of the industry didn't change. It's fiercely competitive.

by adwn 7y ago

going_to_800 7y ago

If the product is great(not only the software, but support, vision, market fit, etc), you need a minimum base of users until it takes off, doesn't matter is B2C or B2B, people will talk.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

TeMPOraL 7y ago

100% right, and the corollary of this is: you don't actually need to make a great product, if your sales&marketing game is good enough. Or, in other words, a lot of successful business - including startups - is exactly the "test hacking" PG urges founders to unlearn. I'm honestly surprised by this essay arguing that "hacking the test" is the wrong approach in startups/business. "Hacking the test" is essentially what your marketing is supposed to do. These "non-authoritarian" tests like selling things are just as hackable as school tests; you just have to discover how the system really operates. The whole authoritarian/non-authoritarian split doesn't carve reality at the joints, IMO. Football match is really an authoritarian test - it tests who wins under the game rules, which are given from the top. It may be hard to hack, but that's because passing that test is usually synonymous with the terminal goals of the test takers - i.e. they want to win the game. You'll note however that, once money gets involved, people are sometimes made to deliberately lose games; in these scenarios, there are usually other people involved who are absolutely hacking the test. The best way I've found to carve the reality at the joints is to talk about terminal and instrumental goals. Learning useful things isn't the terminal goal for most students, getting a good career is (and/or not pissing off parents by getting bad grades). So I'm ultimately surprised that PG argues that building good things, not hacking the test, is how you win the startup game - I would think most of the startups have products as instrumental goals; the exit is the terminal goal. And building a great product isn't the best way to achieve that goal.

derefr 7y ago
> you just have to discover how the system really operates. One might say that, by analogy, this is like saying you cheated on a test by studying. “Learning how the system really operates” isn’t hacking; it’s the thing you’re formally setting out to do as a business!
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  The hacking starts once you learn that building great products isn't the only, or even the best, way to create a successful business.
skybrian 7y ago
What about marketing churn? If people try your product and have a bad experience, maybe they won't try anything else you offer either? It seems like the product at least needs to be somewhat decent?
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  A lot of companies seem fine with churn, as long as they can acquire new customers faster, or if they form an oligopoly (banks and telcos come to mind). In general yes, the product has to meet some minimum bar of decency. How high? Depends on a lot of factors. Note the popularity of business models involving some kind of lock-in - e.g. network effect, holding data hostage. Those are all attempts at hacking around the need for a decent product.
codesections 7y ago
> I would think most of the startups have products as instrumental goals; the exit is the terminal goal. Depressing, if true. I would hope that most people have a product that they want to build, and more money is an instrumental goal that lets them build it better. For example, I'd expect someone who loves to code to have software they want to write, and want enough money to allow them to do so—as opposed the executive who loves money and views writing software as the best way to get it. I'm not convinced that any great work was ever crafted by someone who was primarily crafting for instrumental reasons. But you're probably right, and that's probably a big part of what's so toxic about startup culture these days.

jstummbillig 7y ago

As an example, can you name a b2b or b2c product that you feel is truly great but overlooked?

graycat 7y ago
B2B: (1) The scripting language Rexx. (2) The text editor KEdit with macro language KEXX much like Rexx. (1) and (2) are far and away my two most important tools in computing, from IBM mainframes to PCs, DOS, OS/2, Windows, and my startup on Windows 7 64 bit Professional on an AMD FX-8350 64 bit 8 core processor at 4.0 GHz with Microsoft's .NET. E.g., I typed in the 100,000 lines of text for the software for my startup using KEdit and never an IDE (integrated development environment) -- KEDIT worked FINE! (3) LINPACK. (4) Microsoft's PhotoDraw of about year 2000. (5) Robocopy. (6) Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Tools and their backup and recovery software. (7) D. Knuth's TeX (not LaTeX, just TeX).
- OldHand2018 7y ago
  > (5) Robocopy. Ha! We use robocopy at work because IT refuses to fix our internal network. We can reliably reproduce an NFS mount dropping off the network around the 12th GB of a large file and the only answer is "stop bugging us and use robocopy". All it does is turn a 30-40 minute process into a 3-4 hour process.
- Pxtl 7y ago
  > Robocopy I don't get ms. There's a good kind of copy and a bad kind of copy. Why is the bad kind the default?
  - derefr 7y ago
    The bad kind keeps a legacy API that allows batch scripts from 1985 to work. In every modern OS, the system packages—and most installable first-party packages in a package ecosystem—are there to make the (legacy) software you might install “just work”, not to provide the best experience for users using those packages directly. Users, for their own needs, are expected to install their own tools and runtimes, or to consume collections of them through “toolchain environments” provided by software like IDEs.

ziadbc 7y ago

"Make people want something that is actually junk." doesn't have quite the same ring to it, nor does it sound remotely more plausible. Presumably the 10% weekly growth that YC and PG advocate as the default growth metric isn't expected to be in the absence of sales but the contrary, sales plus anything that works that is ethical and not some ponzi scheme. He provided examples via the link to http://paulgraham.com/ds.html http://paulgraham.com/ds.html where he describes stripe founders engaging in zealous activities many would call sales despite being the type of startup that could have leaned back and had ample demand.

blowski 7y ago
> "Make people want something that is actually junk." doesn't have quite the same ring to it, nor does it sound remotely more plausible. It certainly doesn't have the same ring to it, but it's an extremely successful business model.
brlewis 7y ago
I skimmed that essay. Zealous activities to make existing users happy seemed to be the emphasis. It's possible that there were zealous activities for acquiring users mentioned somewhere, but I missed them because they were less emphasized.

Gatsky 7y ago

Yeah it’s a matter of emphasis. When you are starting up, not having a great product is your biggest problem by far. Also your attitude, if widely applied, would result in a world filled with useless crap with brilliant marketing.

hef19898 7y ago
What makes you think the world isn't? It hardly ever is the best service or product that wins, but the one that sells best. And that is, to a huge degree, marketing. Maybe crap is to harsh, but not the best products? I certainly would sign that sentiment.
- Gatsky 7y ago
  You are perhaps too optimistic. Just heard a scooter start up called ‘Unicorn’ went bust without making a single scooter, losing all the money people gave them for pre-orders. All the money was spent on facebook ads. This is the purest application of marketing, where there is no product, let alone a crap one.
  - detaro 7y ago
    context: https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/7/21000094/unicorn-electric-scooter-shut-down-refund-tile https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/7/21000094/unicorn-electric...

jakobegger 7y ago

> "Build it and they will come" is the dream and misconception of every programmer (...) Well, the amount of marketing required strongly depends on the quality of and demand for your product. I built a software product and launched it with very very minimal marketing (I emailed a blogger and published it on a mailing list). People liked my app so much that I had a 1000 downloads within a few weeks (which I consider decent for a somewhat niche app). Working on that app has since become my full time job, and I do very minimal marketing. Maybe I could make more revenue if I focussed more on marketing, but to be honest I'm pretty amazed how well word of mouth advertising works.

cm2012 7y ago
No. I consult with B2B startups on marketing and have seen the internal data for 20+ B2B tech companies. If anything, the best products with the lowest churn have less referrals, since people don't want their competitors to have the competitive advantage the product provides.
- jakobegger 7y ago
  > people don't want their competitors to have the competitive advantage (...) That sounds like a very cut-throat business. In my target audience, most people are happy to share how they work and which tools they use. I even occasionally see random people recommending my product online (which makes me very happy)
  - cm2012 7y ago
    Generally, different VC firms give a lot of money to similar companies at the same time. In one vertical, I worked with the same company for three years. CPC for the same keywords doubled every year for all 3 years, when the unit economics of the industry didn't change. It's fiercely competitive.