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Ask HN: Build it and they will come or 50% marketing?

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Ask HN: Build it and they will come or 50% marketing?

#1

Post by zuckerei »

Being a complete product nerd, I tend to spend 90% of my time on improving my product (a website).

Therefore I love the idea of "Build it and they will come". Which works for me to some extend (I am ramen profitable).

But often I also hear the opposite. In a recent Mixergy interview, Gabriel Weinberg suggests investing 50% of your time into marketing. And in his book "Traction", Peter Thiel is quoted with the statement, that more startups fail because lack of distribution then because lack of product.

What do you guys think? How much marketing is enough?

Re: Ask HN: Build it and they will come or 50% marketing?

#2

Post by iqonik »

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

You can spend countless hours making improvements but without a user base, you have no idea if they are needed or wanted. Build your MVP, and whilst you're building it, shout about it. Tell everyone. Nobody is going to steal your idea.

Marketing should start from day one and in my opinion be bigger than a 50% split. More like 70% marketing. This will let you streamline your development time and only build things that will benefit your users, and ultimately your revenue stream.

Good luck with your product :)

Re: Ask HN: Build it and they will come or 50% marketing?

#3

Post by buildops »

Product is NOT enough. However, you need to look at marketing holistically. In business school they teach the "4Ps of marketing." One is Promotion. Another, though, is product.

You need all of them (price and place are the other two Ps) to have a successful startup company.

Re: Ask HN: Build it and they will come or 50% marketing?

#4

Post by notahacker »

A couple of thoughts (i) Some of the time spent tinkering with the website counts as marketing. Redesigning the home page to better explain what your service does is marketing, as is adding OAuth capabilities to simplify signup. (ii) Really, the amount of time you need to spend marketing probably depends heavily on whether it's aimed at mass market or an easy-to-reach niche, whether it's something people actively look for or something they need persuading might be a good idea, and whether you have competition. But regardless of those factors it's probably greater than 10%...

Re: Ask HN: Build it and they will come or 50% marketing?

#5

Post by Lordarminius »

"Being a complete product nerd..." describes your dilemma. IMHO the barrier countless many people face is psychological - creating a product is the cool and geeky (read: intelligent) thing to do; marketing is for the less talented people. Well, I'm here to tell you this: the moment you decide to derive gain (and not necessarily financial gain alone) you switch hats from being simply a geek to being a businessman(woman).

Marketing is not an option - it is a NECESSITY.

Great marketing can propel a mediocre or second rate product to dominance over a demonstrably superior rival(s)- (microsoft, coke , kardashian kids, Im looking at you)... Alternatively, it can serve to unlock the potential of a truly valuable offering (Dyson,google,Star wars, I pad)

I would take your idea one step further: once you have your product up and running, ALL your time not spent on critical maintenance tasks should be spent on marketing until the product is entrenched.

Re: Ask HN: Build it and they will come or 50% marketing?

#6

Post by rcarrigan87 »

Lordarminius wrote: post #5

"Being a complete product nerd..." describes your dilemma. IMHO the barrier countless many people face is psychological - creating a product is the cool and geeky (read: intelligent) thing to do; marketing is for the less talented people. Well, I'm here to tell you this: the moment you decide to derive gain (and not necessarily financial gain alone) you switch hats from being simply a geek to being a businessman(woma…

"marketing is for the less talented people"

I don't believe you intended to say this, but it read as such. If you think marketing is for the less talented then you've been around the wrong marketers...

Re: Ask HN: Build it and they will come or 50% marketing?

#7

Post by draker »

iqonik wrote: post #2

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" You can spend countless hours making improvements but without a user base, you have no idea if they are needed or wanted. Build your MVP, and whilst you're building it, shout about it. Tell everyone. Nobody is going to steal your idea. Marketing should start from day one and in my opinion be bigger than a 50% split. More like 70% mar…

>You can spend countless hours making improvements but without a user base, you have no idea if they are needed or wanted.

This is on the right track and I would say that the improvements, iterations and additons to the product should be focused towards the revenue generating users.

It can be difficult to identify this segment, but it is worth the time to do so. Every user will have suggestions for improvement but if the person never intends to pay for the product or only requires the free features then you are wasting your time improving the product for them. This doesn't mean you should ignore the non-paying users, rather you should listen primarily to their suggestions for what the product requires for them to be a paying customer. If you find that a large number of non-paying users would convert to paid if you had X feature; determine the cost and potential revenue of adding the feature.

Re: Ask HN: Build it and they will come or 50% marketing?

#8

Post by cmenge »

rcarrigan87 wrote: post #6
Lordarminius wrote: post #5

"Being a complete product nerd..." describes your dilemma. IMHO the barrier countless many people face is psychological - creating a product is the cool and geeky (read: intelligent) thing to do; marketing is for the less talented people. Well, I'm here to tell you this: the moment you decide to derive gain (and not necessarily financial gain alone) you switch hats from being simply a geek to being a businessman(woma…

"marketing is for the less talented people" I don't believe you intended to say this, but it read as such. If you think marketing is for the less talented then you've been around the wrong marketers...

maybe you should re-read the statement: "the barrier [..] people face is psychological: ... "

Re: Ask HN: Build it and they will come or 50% marketing?

#9

Post by tmaly »

Good question, I just launched an alpha site that is very rough looking. I did do some social media while I was developing it, but it was not enough. I second iqonik's quote about the tree. It sure felt that way when I launched. I think marketing should be at least 50% marketing. How else will you get users in this world filled with distractions and noise?

Re: Ask HN: Build it and they will come or 50% marketing?

#10

Post by MalcolmDiggs »

IMHO: In most cases, dedicating 50% of your time to marketing is a good idea. The notable exceptions would be:

* Your growth model relies on virality. (In which case, as long as you have some traffic, that should be enough to test your model and potentially start growing).

* Your growth model relies on SEO (in which case, you should spend time on that, not direct marketing)

* Your growth model relies on referrals. (Think of a contractor who does no marketing himself, he just incentivizes his clients to refer new clients)

* Your business model doesn't rely on user growth (hard to think of an example here, but I'm sure it exists).

But in most cases, you've got to market the product aggressively. Think of how many millions of sites exist (and are vying for your users' attention). Without some effort put into marketing, there's little reason to assume a user will visit your site at all.

That being said, you should do what you're good at. If you feel like the product needs to be marketed heavily (and you don't enjoy that kind of work), then maybe it's worth finding a co-founder who enjoys that part.

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