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>Pipedrive could have grown to 10,000 paying customers without any marketing and the next paragraph >The main thing that got Pipedrive to first 100, 1000 and

>Pipedrive could have grown to 10,000 paying customers without any marketing and the next paragraph >The main thing that got Pipedrive to first 100, 1000 and 10000 customers was having a great product. Building a great product IS marketing. It's the most important part of marketing. It's at the beginning of any marketing plan. Marketing is the science of bringing a product to market, and later on, navigating the markets the company operates in. Advertising, sales, PR are only communication tools which fall in only 1P (promotion) out of the 5Ps. The article continues to list marketing activities. In fact, it only lists marketing activities, while insisting they don't do any marketing. Finding your LTCV is marketing (Price). Localizing is marketing (Place). Content, SEO, email are also marketing (Promotion). Finding platforms before others is also makreting. All in all, I would advise the author of this article to read the wikipedia page (lol) about marketing before making attempts to speak on the subject.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
standrews 12y ago
Hey, thank you for chiming in. I'm not sure how you got the impression that I insisted we "don't do any marketing." - sorry if I wasn't clear. What I aimed to say was that product was the main reason for getting to 10k, and marketing tactics and strategies I described each contributed further.
- blumkvist 12y ago
  I wanted to make a more general point to all the people who misunderstand marketing. Actually, the overwhelming majority of people associate marketing with advertising or design on flyers. The point I wanted to make is geared towards people in startups who misunderstand marketing and thus completely avoid the topic, which more often than not, reflects on their success. It also leads to inventing terms like "content marketing", "inbound marketing", "growth hacking". Oh, the irony with the last one. A marketing term, to trick people who hate marketing, to do marketing... I'm sure it pans out great for people like Rand Fishkin, Dharmesh Shah and Sean Ellis. The problem is, the people who fall for these neologisms get disconnected from the much, much larger marketing community. They get inside of an echo chamber. Instead of reading thorough articles, by authors which credentials are checked, claims are investigated and arguments - reviewed by peers, they get moz.com and quicksprout and kissmetrics, unbounce and optimizely. Well, I guess people get what they ask for - something easy, which does its "magic". My last line in the previous post was a cheap shot and uncalled for. I'm sorry about that.
  - goodJobWalrus 12y ago
    this is actually great advice. what would you recommend reading?
    - blumkvist 12y ago
      ISSN: 1573-059X; 0022-2437; 0022-2429; 0732-2399; 2164-3970; 1520-6793. https://www.informs.org/ https://www.informs.org/ (a couple of the journals are published by them); their Analytics magazine is also good, as well as their site. ama.org Any book published by Springer, Emeral Insight and Taylor & Francis Group.
  - philod 12y ago
    I'm sensing a marketing academic. I agree with some points and the echo chamber is very real However, while I wish there were more people reading peer reviewed journals and debating the full spectrum of marketing, the literature is unfortunately 5 years behind what's actually going on in businesses and online (we are talking about SaaS here). Research and empirical work takes time but consumers move quickly, especially online, so by the time reports and data are published it's out of date. The only half decent way to keep up with developments is to buy into some of these "neologisms" or you will be left behind.
    - blumkvist 12y ago
      > the literature is unfortunately 5 years behind what's actually going on in businesses and online Did you come down to this conclusion by yourself, or did you read/heard it somewhere? Also, I'm not an academic.
  - shostack 12y ago
    Marketer here. What exactly is wrong with data and insights from a variety of sources that might include Moz, Optimizely, etc? These are marketing technology companies and have a unique bird's-eye perspective of raw data across numerous companies. Further, people like Rand Fishkin know their shit. You might disagree with it, but I guarantee if you had a conversation with him and voiced your arguments, he'd be able to cite plenty of data to back up his claims and have an honest debate about it. Marketers who take what they read as gospel concern me, and I fully agree with that. People need to do their due diligence and figure out how things apply to their business. They should also read broader respected industry news sources (ie. searchengineland, searchenginejournal, etc.), and be active in communities of people tackling similar challenges with similar experience to trade notes. I agree with the other comments though on the fact that building a great product isn't necessarily marketing. Informing great product design through solid market research could come from marketing, but that is very different than physically building a product. The "build it and they will come" fallacy is a dangerous one. Communicating that you have a product is the act of marketing. Even placing it on a website with content is marketing because you may get organic search traffic, or referral traffic if people link to you, etc.
dsp1234 12y ago
The original post doesn't claim they didn't do marketing. In fact, the first sentence in the post is "Short answer: great product, some marketing and a bit of luck.". The whole quote about "without any marketing is" is: Pipedrive could have grown to 10,000 paying customers without any marketing: by describing it as "it's a piece of sales software" on an uncrawlable site without any design, without onboarding emails, without press mentions, without a single ad and blog post. I took that as the author using hyperbole to critique how "enterprise" sales systems work by literally just existing.
ojbyrne 12y ago
Also, "... used by 20 or so companies" is marketing. Sometimes getting to 1 company can be challenging.
100timesthis 12y ago
>Marketing is the science of bringing a product to market... Marketing is not a science
- blumkvist 12y ago
  How come?
robotkilla 12y ago
This article itself reads like a piece of marketing to me.
- standrews 12y ago
  The aim was to share what has worked for Pipedrive. Of course, I hoped to show myself and Pipedrive in good light in the process - sorry if the balance wasn't right for you there.
Kenji 12y ago
>Marketing is the science of bringing a product to market, and later on, navigating the markets the company operates in. No. See Wikipedia: Marketing is the methodology of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling that product or service. Marketing is about communicating the value of the product. Regardless of the actual quality of the product. Building a great product is not marketing.
- blumkvist 12y ago
  Well, I spoke too quickly about the wikipedia article then. It must have changed, or I've read another page. The page which says that is wrong. Communicating product value is only part of the marketing mix. Building a great product is most definitely part of marketing. For example there are methods and techniques which faciiliate it and are subject of marketing journals and marketing academia. One of these methods is the "segmentation-targeting-positioning" framework. I can get you many more citations if you wish, or you can spare me the time, and search for them yourself. Perhaps you will learn something of value in the process.
  - PuffinBlue 12y ago
    'Segmentation-targeting-positioning' doesn't support your assertion and you're conflating marketing and product development. This thinking can occur because often entrants to a competitive marketplace will assess their competition, identify a weakness and deploy a product to meet the need. The development of the product in this scenario is not 'marketing' as you assert.
    - blumkvist 12y ago
      Product development is dictated by marketing strategy. How would you build your product if you don't know what the market conditions are? How do you find out what the market conditions are? By segmenting the market by behaviour/need/price sensitivity, then targeting a segment which is underserved (or you can serve better), and finally positioning your product to cater to that particular segment with specific product design, messages and distribution channels. Marketing doesn't develop the product. It just designs it (writes the specs).
tdaltonc 12y ago
Hate is love; War is peace; and everything is marketing.
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
Two things. First, marketing is not a scientific discipline. Full stop. Calling it a science does real science a disservice, and reeks as we say down south of putting on airs. Second, you're trying to make marketing encompass every piece of a business, from product idea to design to construction and beyond. It isn't everything. It isn't about designing or creating a product (other than marketing materials or services), even if marketing may help shed insight into the targets' needs. At some point you're going to realize that by attempting to fit everything into the marketing bucket that the term marketing ceases to have meaning.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- lexap 12y ago
  Voice of reason, thank god. Are we working at P&G here? This is startupland, nothing is scientific in the academic sense, least of all marketing or customer behavior. "Peer reviewed?" Please....
  - blumkvist 12y ago
    > Are we working at P&G here? No, teradata.
lexap 12y ago
Wow, I applaud you for defending marketing on HN. Bravo, brave soul. I wholeheartedly agree as well.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

standrews 12y ago

Hey, thank you for chiming in. I'm not sure how you got the impression that I insisted we "don't do any marketing." - sorry if I wasn't clear. What I aimed to say was that product was the main reason for getting to 10k, and marketing tactics and strategies I described each contributed further.

blumkvist 12y ago
I wanted to make a more general point to all the people who misunderstand marketing. Actually, the overwhelming majority of people associate marketing with advertising or design on flyers. The point I wanted to make is geared towards people in startups who misunderstand marketing and thus completely avoid the topic, which more often than not, reflects on their success. It also leads to inventing terms like "content marketing", "inbound marketing", "growth hacking". Oh, the irony with the last one. A marketing term, to trick people who hate marketing, to do marketing... I'm sure it pans out great for people like Rand Fishkin, Dharmesh Shah and Sean Ellis. The problem is, the people who fall for these neologisms get disconnected from the much, much larger marketing community. They get inside of an echo chamber. Instead of reading thorough articles, by authors which credentials are checked, claims are investigated and arguments - reviewed by peers, they get moz.com and quicksprout and kissmetrics, unbounce and optimizely. Well, I guess people get what they ask for - something easy, which does its "magic". My last line in the previous post was a cheap shot and uncalled for. I'm sorry about that.
- goodJobWalrus 12y ago
  this is actually great advice. what would you recommend reading?
  - blumkvist 12y ago
    ISSN: 1573-059X; 0022-2437; 0022-2429; 0732-2399; 2164-3970; 1520-6793. https://www.informs.org/ https://www.informs.org/ (a couple of the journals are published by them); their Analytics magazine is also good, as well as their site. ama.org Any book published by Springer, Emeral Insight and Taylor & Francis Group.
- philod 12y ago
  I'm sensing a marketing academic. I agree with some points and the echo chamber is very real However, while I wish there were more people reading peer reviewed journals and debating the full spectrum of marketing, the literature is unfortunately 5 years behind what's actually going on in businesses and online (we are talking about SaaS here). Research and empirical work takes time but consumers move quickly, especially online, so by the time reports and data are published it's out of date. The only half decent way to keep up with developments is to buy into some of these "neologisms" or you will be left behind.
  - blumkvist 12y ago
    > the literature is unfortunately 5 years behind what's actually going on in businesses and online Did you come down to this conclusion by yourself, or did you read/heard it somewhere? Also, I'm not an academic.
- shostack 12y ago
  Marketer here. What exactly is wrong with data and insights from a variety of sources that might include Moz, Optimizely, etc? These are marketing technology companies and have a unique bird's-eye perspective of raw data across numerous companies. Further, people like Rand Fishkin know their shit. You might disagree with it, but I guarantee if you had a conversation with him and voiced your arguments, he'd be able to cite plenty of data to back up his claims and have an honest debate about it. Marketers who take what they read as gospel concern me, and I fully agree with that. People need to do their due diligence and figure out how things apply to their business. They should also read broader respected industry news sources (ie. searchengineland, searchenginejournal, etc.), and be active in communities of people tackling similar challenges with similar experience to trade notes. I agree with the other comments though on the fact that building a great product isn't necessarily marketing. Informing great product design through solid market research could come from marketing, but that is very different than physically building a product. The "build it and they will come" fallacy is a dangerous one. Communicating that you have a product is the act of marketing. Even placing it on a website with content is marketing because you may get organic search traffic, or referral traffic if people link to you, etc.

dsp1234 12y ago

The original post doesn't claim they didn't do marketing. In fact, the first sentence in the post is "Short answer: great product, some marketing and a bit of luck.". The whole quote about "without any marketing is" is: Pipedrive could have grown to 10,000 paying customers without any marketing: by describing it as "it's a piece of sales software" on an uncrawlable site without any design, without onboarding emails, without press mentions, without a single ad and blog post. I took that as the author using hyperbole to critique how "enterprise" sales systems work by literally just existing.

ojbyrne 12y ago

Also, "... used by 20 or so companies" is marketing. Sometimes getting to 1 company can be challenging.

100timesthis 12y ago

>Marketing is the science of bringing a product to market... Marketing is not a science

blumkvist 12y ago
How come?

robotkilla 12y ago

This article itself reads like a piece of marketing to me.

standrews 12y ago
The aim was to share what has worked for Pipedrive. Of course, I hoped to show myself and Pipedrive in good light in the process - sorry if the balance wasn't right for you there.

Kenji 12y ago

>Marketing is the science of bringing a product to market, and later on, navigating the markets the company operates in. No. See Wikipedia: Marketing is the methodology of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling that product or service. Marketing is about communicating the value of the product. Regardless of the actual quality of the product. Building a great product is not marketing.

blumkvist 12y ago
Well, I spoke too quickly about the wikipedia article then. It must have changed, or I've read another page. The page which says that is wrong. Communicating product value is only part of the marketing mix. Building a great product is most definitely part of marketing. For example there are methods and techniques which faciiliate it and are subject of marketing journals and marketing academia. One of these methods is the "segmentation-targeting-positioning" framework. I can get you many more citations if you wish, or you can spare me the time, and search for them yourself. Perhaps you will learn something of value in the process.
- PuffinBlue 12y ago
  'Segmentation-targeting-positioning' doesn't support your assertion and you're conflating marketing and product development. This thinking can occur because often entrants to a competitive marketplace will assess their competition, identify a weakness and deploy a product to meet the need. The development of the product in this scenario is not 'marketing' as you assert.
  - blumkvist 12y ago
    Product development is dictated by marketing strategy. How would you build your product if you don't know what the market conditions are? How do you find out what the market conditions are? By segmenting the market by behaviour/need/price sensitivity, then targeting a segment which is underserved (or you can serve better), and finally positioning your product to cater to that particular segment with specific product design, messages and distribution channels. Marketing doesn't develop the product. It just designs it (writes the specs).

tdaltonc 12y ago

Hate is love; War is peace; and everything is marketing.

Iftheshoefits 12y ago

Two things. First, marketing is not a scientific discipline. Full stop. Calling it a science does real science a disservice, and reeks as we say down south of putting on airs. Second, you're trying to make marketing encompass every piece of a business, from product idea to design to construction and beyond. It isn't everything. It isn't about designing or creating a product (other than marketing materials or services), even if marketing may help shed insight into the targets' needs. At some point you're going to realize that by attempting to fit everything into the marketing bucket that the term marketing ceases to have meaning.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
lexap 12y ago
Voice of reason, thank god. Are we working at P&G here? This is startupland, nothing is scientific in the academic sense, least of all marketing or customer behavior. "Peer reviewed?" Please....
- blumkvist 12y ago
  > Are we working at P&G here? No, teradata.

lexap 12y ago

Wow, I applaud you for defending marketing on HN. Bravo, brave soul. I wholeheartedly agree as well.