4 ms·

How are you measuring value added? A great product with no sales adds very little value.

by rileymat2 5y ago

ecf 5y ago
A great product sells itself.
- friedman23 5y ago
  This is just not true.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Given extremes of "a great product sells itself" vs "well-marketed vaporware is successful," the former is more true.
  - reificator 5y ago
    > > A great product sells itself. > This is just not true. Minecraft is the best selling game of all time[0] and while it's been marketed more since Microsoft purchased it, the first million sales happened within 7 months of charging for the game. Just over a year after commercial release it hit 10 million sales. This was not a period of Minecraft marketing. Most sales were due to people simply seeing others (friends, YouTubers) playing the game and wanting to try it themselves. [0]: Wikipedia claims 238 million sales, vs GTA V in second place with 155 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_gam...
    - friedman23 5y ago
      Notch was posting about his game on 4chan and on various places on the internet. It didn't just go viral out of nowhere. He also gave it away for free until he started charging for it so calling those downloads sales is disingenuous. Anyway sure, maybe there are apps that instantly go viral with minimal marketing but if you build an amazing tool, put it on the internet and don't talk about it to anyone I guarantee you it will get 0 sales.
      - rileymat2 5y ago
        It should be noted, Minecraft is an incredible outlier in a lot of ways.
- z3t4 5y ago
  You could start giving away gold for free, but noone will come unless you tell at least one guy about it, but likely he will not believe you. So you need to tell several people, maybe hundreds if it's not easily accessed. But likely you just have a great product, and you are not willing to give it away for free, so it will take much more to attract people! And there is also timing, if for example Google or Facebook would launch today (in their original form) they would have a very hard time acquiring users.
willis936 5y ago
And marketing with no product has no value.
2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
That argument works both ways though. What are they marketing and selling when all the devs leave?
- rileymat2 5y ago
  Yeah, I am a developer, I believe I add value, but the question is about a pretty bold statement to other roles.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    I read the OP as the situation when other departments balloon and more resources are not spent on dev. I’ve been there before: I reported to more managers than devs. And the company just tried to sell the same thing in new ways because they were incapable of making things better or building something new.

How are you measuring value added? A great product with no sales adds very little value.

ecf 5y ago

A great product sells itself.

friedman23 5y ago
This is just not true.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Given extremes of "a great product sells itself" vs "well-marketed vaporware is successful," the former is more true.
- reificator 5y ago
  > > A great product sells itself. > This is just not true. Minecraft is the best selling game of all time[0] and while it's been marketed more since Microsoft purchased it, the first million sales happened within 7 months of charging for the game. Just over a year after commercial release it hit 10 million sales. This was not a period of Minecraft marketing. Most sales were due to people simply seeing others (friends, YouTubers) playing the game and wanting to try it themselves. [0]: Wikipedia claims 238 million sales, vs GTA V in second place with 155 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_gam...
  - friedman23 5y ago
    Notch was posting about his game on 4chan and on various places on the internet. It didn't just go viral out of nowhere. He also gave it away for free until he started charging for it so calling those downloads sales is disingenuous. Anyway sure, maybe there are apps that instantly go viral with minimal marketing but if you build an amazing tool, put it on the internet and don't talk about it to anyone I guarantee you it will get 0 sales.
    - rileymat2 5y ago
      It should be noted, Minecraft is an incredible outlier in a lot of ways.
z3t4 5y ago
You could start giving away gold for free, but noone will come unless you tell at least one guy about it, but likely he will not believe you. So you need to tell several people, maybe hundreds if it's not easily accessed. But likely you just have a great product, and you are not willing to give it away for free, so it will take much more to attract people! And there is also timing, if for example Google or Facebook would launch today (in their original form) they would have a very hard time acquiring users.

willis936 5y ago

And marketing with no product has no value.

2muchcoffeeman 5y ago

That argument works both ways though. What are they marketing and selling when all the devs leave?

rileymat2 5y ago
Yeah, I am a developer, I believe I add value, but the question is about a pretty bold statement to other roles.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  I read the OP as the situation when other departments balloon and more resources are not spent on dev. I’ve been there before: I reported to more managers than devs. And the company just tried to sell the same thing in new ways because they were incapable of making things better or building something new.