7 ms·

Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

104 points by tmartty 7y ago

kristianc 7y ago
It’s important to distinguish what most people reading this are likely to consider ‘marketing’ with what actually made these businesses successful. All of the businesses cited succeeded because they established a differentiated position in the market - GMail because it gave you 10x more storage than was available at the time, and a conversational interface; WhatsApp because it meant that international SMS was now free; Tesla because it sit at the intersection of eco-friendliness and premium design. Saying that GMail is just about messages, Tesla just about electric cars does a disservice to what actually makes these businesses exceptional. And you do genuinely need that differentiation, otherwise all you have to compete on is price. I’d be worried that someone reading this would take the idea that all you need is an average business idea and some growth-hackery business tactics like a landing page and Facebook ads, and presto you have a business. Most businesses do fail because of poor marketing, but not marketing as the HN crowd generally sees it.
- soneca 7y ago
  Completely agree. > WhatsApp because it meant that international SMS was now free Not sure the exact meaning of "international" here. In Brazil SMS was not free at all, so Whatsapp became a free SMS for all, with bonus of a nice chat UI that made easy to be in conversations (contrary to any phone's SMS UI at the time), groups, images (becoming a MMS for free too). So, a 100x better SMS for free. No wonder it exploded. But the use case was mostly for local messages, not international messages.
  - kristianc 7y ago
    Agree - I put international SMS as in some countries (such as the UK) providers were beginning to bundle ‘free’ SMS before WhatsApp came along - in these markets international SMS / Voice / MMS for expats, students etc was a big deal. You’re right to point out though that in many countries, WhatsApp was the first cross platform free SMS of any kind.
    - melling 7y ago
      This conversation has not been very productive. Basically it’s a pedantic discussion about the meaning of marketing. I recommend this [updated] 10-year-old article about finding your first 1000 customers: https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/ Much has been written about the idea: https://seths.blog/2009/12/first-organize-1000/ https://seths.blog/2009/12/first-organize-1000/ https://nowspeed.com/seth-godins-latest-book-tribes/ https://nowspeed.com/seth-godins-latest-book-tribes/ http://jumpcut.com/blog/kevin-kelly-1000-true-fans/ http://jumpcut.com/blog/kevin-kelly-1000-true-fans/
      - tmartty 7y ago
        Thanks for the links!
      - redis_mlc 7y ago
        FYI: Patreon is the realization of 1000 True Fans, at least for musicians. Except only 50 - 250 patrons are needed to subsist full-time, much less than 1,000.
metalrain 7y ago
Somehow I read title of book like this. As developer I should market the day I started coding. Like I started coding 17 years ago, I may know some stuff, hire me please. It's funny how different perspectives we have.
- tmartty 7y ago
  I don't understand.. noone's trying to get hired here, Rob is a well known guy in the ecosystem and I'm just a developer with my own agency. What's your perspective?
michaelbuckbee 7y ago
Big fan of Rob and his work, for those unfamiliar with him he's one of the founders of MicroConf, half of the "Startups for the Rest of Us" podcast and built and then sold Drip (an Email Service). Whether or not you're seeking to build your own microsaas or you're going full VC funding I feel pretty strongly that you'll see the time spent reading his book as worthwhile. Here's a direct link to it (it's not gated on his site, so this seems fine to share) https://robwalling.com/assets/ebook.pdf https://robwalling.com/assets/ebook.pdf
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  >>Here's a direct link to it (it's not gated on his site, so this seems fine to share) Yes, it does indeed say that on the second page. :)
melling 7y ago
Marketing usually costs money. If you’re trying to bootstrap, you probably should wait until your product is finished? There are very few free avenues for self promotion on the Internet for “code”, other than a blog.
- tomhoward 7y ago
  It doesn't need to if you're doing something highly valuable for a specific subset of potential customers. I don't know what it says in the book, but I'd expect the message would be similar to the YC advice, which is to start talking very early and frequently to potential and existing customers, to ensure that what you’re building is highly valuable to them. YC partners have often said that the companies that achieve the biggest success are the ones who are the most active in talking to existing/potential customers. They also note that the ones who spend money on paid marketing before they have a highly valuable product and organic (i.e., free) growth are the ones who fail.
  - melling 7y ago
    Talking to potential is customers is more about making sure you’re solving someone’s real problem, as opposed to “build it and they will come”. That should probably fall under a different category than marketing. We’re overloading the term, which could lead to confusion. Your “advice” would fall under the “getting your first 1000 users” trope: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajayyadav/2017/05/16/how-to-get-your-first-1000-customers-at-your-startup/#716cb8d73b44 https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajayyadav/2017/05/16/how-to-get...
    - tomhoward 7y ago
      > "making sure you’re solving someone’s real problem" When I studied a couple of university marketing subjects in the mid-90s, we were taught that's about the most fundamental aspect of marketing. > “We’re overloading the term” I think it's more likely you're reacting to a stereotype of marketing held by people outside the field, rather than what it really is according to those who do it properly. From the author's own summary of the book: So basically: start marketing the day you start coding. Or, actually... before you even start coding! Validate your idea, build a prototype, show it to people, gather feedback, improve it and keep going.
rb808 7y ago
Some good advice I heard here a few years ago is start marketing well before you start coding. Eg create a website, start your advertising, look for customers while providing a white label product or even just a promise to deliver later. Its a great way to find out if anyone is interested. If you can attract actual customers then you can start coding. If you have trouble getting any attention maybe you have the wrong product.
- kristianc 7y ago
  This may have been good advice a few years ago, but things do move on. People are wary giving their email address to the promise of a service and will normally now be hesitant to engage without some kind of product in return. What’s more, having people actually use and pay for your product is much better validation than people saying they will (not always the same thing)
  - itake 7y ago
    I feel the opposite. The early days of the internets (2000-2010) spam was crazy and annoying. I hated giving out my email because I would just get even more unwanted email and I knew I would forget my password to any new account I made. Today, we have much better spam filters, companies realizing sending unwanted spam only hurts them (so they offer unsub), and password managers. I would signup for a product just to see more info if I was curious about their offering.
    - im3w1l 7y ago
      They offer unsub because they are legally required to.
    - iudqnolq 7y ago
      Is anyone else comforted when they see an email signup is through list-manage.com? I trust that at absolute worst I can email MailChimp and they will actually act on my desire to unsubscribe, and I know that almost certainly that won't be needed because of their enforcement of reasonable unsubscribe. I find it ironic because it seems they wanted as anodyne a domain as possible so they wouldn't clash with their customers' brands.
mpurham 7y ago
This!!! I have started many "side projects" with the notion that once I build it I will then find customers etc. This is terrible thinking and most of the times lead me to think my idea is horrible, when in reality I have done nothing in terms of marketing. So yes I fully agree with start marketing the day you start coding. When I started https://mattebot.co/ https://mattebot.co/ I made sure to make marketing a top priority for products I release in the future.
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  FYI on Android Firefox Preview social icons are behind heading. No idea if that's true for other mobile browsers.
awinter-py 7y ago
fascinated by the 'ideas aren't worth that much, tell everyone' argument have been trying this and every time my splash page gets a click I get nervous (cloudprogress.io). certainly lights a fire under me on the prelaunch work though
werber 7y ago
A lot of what is referred to as marketing at the end of the article sounds like ux
- tmartty 7y ago
  You mean the 'Validate your idea, build a prototype, show it to people, gather feedback, improve it and keep going' part? That's far from UX, and also far from marketing.. those are steps I'd take if starting a new project. BUT all those steps should be intersected with marketing from day one.
  - werber 7y ago
    Hmm, that’s what I think ux should do, what the marketing department was doing at my last job and why they were at war

104 points by tmartty 7y ago

It’s important to distinguish what most people reading this are likely to consider ‘marketing’ with what actually made these businesses successful. All of the businesses cited succeeded because they established a differentiated position in the market - GMail because it gave you 10x more storage than was available at the time, and a conversational interface; WhatsApp because it meant that international SMS was now free; Tesla because it sit at the intersection of eco-friendliness and premium design. Saying that GMail is just about messages, Tesla just about electric cars does a disservice to what actually makes these businesses exceptional. And you do genuinely need that differentiation, otherwise all you have to compete on is price. I’d be worried that someone reading this would take the idea that all you need is an average business idea and some growth-hackery business tactics like a landing page and Facebook ads, and presto you have a business. Most businesses do fail because of poor marketing, but not marketing as the HN crowd generally sees it.

soneca 7y ago
Completely agree. > WhatsApp because it meant that international SMS was now free Not sure the exact meaning of "international" here. In Brazil SMS was not free at all, so Whatsapp became a free SMS for all, with bonus of a nice chat UI that made easy to be in conversations (contrary to any phone's SMS UI at the time), groups, images (becoming a MMS for free too). So, a 100x better SMS for free. No wonder it exploded. But the use case was mostly for local messages, not international messages.
- kristianc 7y ago
  Agree - I put international SMS as in some countries (such as the UK) providers were beginning to bundle ‘free’ SMS before WhatsApp came along - in these markets international SMS / Voice / MMS for expats, students etc was a big deal. You’re right to point out though that in many countries, WhatsApp was the first cross platform free SMS of any kind.
  - melling 7y ago
    This conversation has not been very productive. Basically it’s a pedantic discussion about the meaning of marketing. I recommend this [updated] 10-year-old article about finding your first 1000 customers: https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/ Much has been written about the idea: https://seths.blog/2009/12/first-organize-1000/ https://seths.blog/2009/12/first-organize-1000/ https://nowspeed.com/seth-godins-latest-book-tribes/ https://nowspeed.com/seth-godins-latest-book-tribes/ http://jumpcut.com/blog/kevin-kelly-1000-true-fans/ http://jumpcut.com/blog/kevin-kelly-1000-true-fans/
    - tmartty 7y ago
      Thanks for the links!
    - redis_mlc 7y ago
      FYI: Patreon is the realization of 1000 True Fans, at least for musicians. Except only 50 - 250 patrons are needed to subsist full-time, much less than 1,000.

metalrain 7y ago

Somehow I read title of book like this. As developer I should market the day I started coding. Like I started coding 17 years ago, I may know some stuff, hire me please. It's funny how different perspectives we have.

tmartty 7y ago
I don't understand.. noone's trying to get hired here, Rob is a well known guy in the ecosystem and I'm just a developer with my own agency. What's your perspective?

michaelbuckbee 7y ago

Big fan of Rob and his work, for those unfamiliar with him he's one of the founders of MicroConf, half of the "Startups for the Rest of Us" podcast and built and then sold Drip (an Email Service). Whether or not you're seeking to build your own microsaas or you're going full VC funding I feel pretty strongly that you'll see the time spent reading his book as worthwhile. Here's a direct link to it (it's not gated on his site, so this seems fine to share) https://robwalling.com/assets/ebook.pdf https://robwalling.com/assets/ebook.pdf

enraged_camel 7y ago
>>Here's a direct link to it (it's not gated on his site, so this seems fine to share) Yes, it does indeed say that on the second page. :)

melling 7y ago

Marketing usually costs money. If you’re trying to bootstrap, you probably should wait until your product is finished? There are very few free avenues for self promotion on the Internet for “code”, other than a blog.

tomhoward 7y ago
It doesn't need to if you're doing something highly valuable for a specific subset of potential customers. I don't know what it says in the book, but I'd expect the message would be similar to the YC advice, which is to start talking very early and frequently to potential and existing customers, to ensure that what you’re building is highly valuable to them. YC partners have often said that the companies that achieve the biggest success are the ones who are the most active in talking to existing/potential customers. They also note that the ones who spend money on paid marketing before they have a highly valuable product and organic (i.e., free) growth are the ones who fail.
- melling 7y ago
  Talking to potential is customers is more about making sure you’re solving someone’s real problem, as opposed to “build it and they will come”. That should probably fall under a different category than marketing. We’re overloading the term, which could lead to confusion. Your “advice” would fall under the “getting your first 1000 users” trope: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajayyadav/2017/05/16/how-to-get-your-first-1000-customers-at-your-startup/#716cb8d73b44 https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajayyadav/2017/05/16/how-to-get...
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    > "making sure you’re solving someone’s real problem" When I studied a couple of university marketing subjects in the mid-90s, we were taught that's about the most fundamental aspect of marketing. > “We’re overloading the term” I think it's more likely you're reacting to a stereotype of marketing held by people outside the field, rather than what it really is according to those who do it properly. From the author's own summary of the book: So basically: start marketing the day you start coding. Or, actually... before you even start coding! Validate your idea, build a prototype, show it to people, gather feedback, improve it and keep going.

rb808 7y ago

Some good advice I heard here a few years ago is start marketing well before you start coding. Eg create a website, start your advertising, look for customers while providing a white label product or even just a promise to deliver later. Its a great way to find out if anyone is interested. If you can attract actual customers then you can start coding. If you have trouble getting any attention maybe you have the wrong product.

kristianc 7y ago
This may have been good advice a few years ago, but things do move on. People are wary giving their email address to the promise of a service and will normally now be hesitant to engage without some kind of product in return. What’s more, having people actually use and pay for your product is much better validation than people saying they will (not always the same thing)
- itake 7y ago
  I feel the opposite. The early days of the internets (2000-2010) spam was crazy and annoying. I hated giving out my email because I would just get even more unwanted email and I knew I would forget my password to any new account I made. Today, we have much better spam filters, companies realizing sending unwanted spam only hurts them (so they offer unsub), and password managers. I would signup for a product just to see more info if I was curious about their offering.
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    They offer unsub because they are legally required to.
  - iudqnolq 7y ago
    Is anyone else comforted when they see an email signup is through list-manage.com? I trust that at absolute worst I can email MailChimp and they will actually act on my desire to unsubscribe, and I know that almost certainly that won't be needed because of their enforcement of reasonable unsubscribe. I find it ironic because it seems they wanted as anodyne a domain as possible so they wouldn't clash with their customers' brands.

mpurham 7y ago

This!!! I have started many "side projects" with the notion that once I build it I will then find customers etc. This is terrible thinking and most of the times lead me to think my idea is horrible, when in reality I have done nothing in terms of marketing. So yes I fully agree with start marketing the day you start coding. When I started https://mattebot.co/ https://mattebot.co/ I made sure to make marketing a top priority for products I release in the future.

iudqnolq 7y ago
FYI on Android Firefox Preview social icons are behind heading. No idea if that's true for other mobile browsers.

awinter-py 7y ago

fascinated by the 'ideas aren't worth that much, tell everyone' argument have been trying this and every time my splash page gets a click I get nervous (cloudprogress.io). certainly lights a fire under me on the prelaunch work though

werber 7y ago

A lot of what is referred to as marketing at the end of the article sounds like ux

tmartty 7y ago
You mean the 'Validate your idea, build a prototype, show it to people, gather feedback, improve it and keep going' part? That's far from UX, and also far from marketing.. those are steps I'd take if starting a new project. BUT all those steps should be intersected with marketing from day one.
- werber 7y ago
  Hmm, that’s what I think ux should do, what the marketing department was doing at my last job and why they were at war