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An odd post from Jeff Atwood. He (sort of) defines Marketing as: 1. people understand what you're doing 2. people become interested in what you're doing
by bdfh42 18y ago
An odd post from Jeff Atwood.
He (sort of) defines Marketing as:
1. people understand what you're doing
2. people become interested in what you're doing
3. people get excited about what you're doing
I would say it was more about people understanding what your product can do for them, identifying it's value and thus parting with their money.
- tom_rath 18y agoThat's conflating marketing and advertising when they're actually two different things. Think of marketing as the social component of design. You wouldn't start coding without at least a rudimentary spec to guide what it is you want to make, right? So why start designing your product without first identifying what and for whom it is you are designing it? Marketing is the process of identifying the target market for your product. The "what it does" and "who it's for" part that a design needs if you're going to "build something people want".
- bdfh42 18y agoI think you nicely describe the planning part of marketing - but you have to include the execution where you reach out to your target market. Advertising (in all it's forms) is a crucial tool of marketing.
- tom_rath 18y agoExcept that advertising isn't marketing: It's advertising. They're different things related to your business and should be handled differently. I've run into a few companies who have painfully put an 'advertising guy' in charge of their marketing department and it's not worked well (in my limited sample). People are often great at advertising but couldn't put a decent product strategy together to save their life (or job!). You wouldn't put your web developer or icon designer in charge of system administration or database scaling, right? Just like non-coders tend to lump everything technical together as 'computer stuff', technical folks can fall into the trap of lumping accounting, marketing, advertising, etc. into the same batch as 'business stuff'. That path leads to madness.
- pchristensen 18y agoThat sounds like a rephrasing of his #2 and #3
- bdfh42 18y agoI don't think so. I don't think it is up to the ultimate consumer to become interested in what we (as developers) are doing. I think it is up to us to explain to them just what problem we are going to solve or just how we are going to save them time or money. Thats marketing - identify the target market. Convince that market segment that they need your product and then make sure that you don't put obstacles in their way while they are trying to buy it.
- MaysonL 18y agoI think that some of the best products will come from programmers who find audiences with whom to coevolve the product: getting into a tight feedback loop with a bright bunch of alpha or beta testers.
- jimbokun 18y ago"...and thus parting with their money." If I'm not misunderstanding the Y-Combinator philosophy (for lack of a better term), this is premature optimization. Focus on making something people want, and you will then be able to find a way to persuade people to part with their money. 1 - 3 above should, I think, be highly correlated with "make something people want." (To pre-empt charges of "appeal to authority", consider this an argument with a proper citation. :)
- njharman 18y ago"people understanding what your product can do for them, identifying it's value and thus parting with their money." A developer's product is themselves. It's about marketing yourself, To coworkers, bosses, interviewers, VC's, future partners, clients, etc. It's not big M Marketing selling crap to people.