31–40 of 44 posts
I know a lot of engineers who internally just despise ads, promoting, outreaching, pitching, etc, but they will say they "suck" at marketing. Most of the time it's not a skill issue, it's the personality and mindset.
You need to understand why you are "lacking" in marketing or sales. I know a lot of engineers who internally just despise ads, promoting, outreaching, pitching, etc, but they will say they "suck" at marketing. Most of the time it's not a skill issue, it's the personality and mindset.
Funnny, I am the other side of this coin. I am a founder specializing in product and marketing but I don’t write code. Having now scaled up from zero customers to 100+ I can tell you the main things I see people get wrong: -talking too much about what the product can do, rather than the result the person will get. -focusing on features, which users don’t care about, rather than outcomes which they do. -forgetting tha…
Suggestion: Rethink the "co-founder" concept. This implies equity of some sort in your company. And I doubt you are really prepared to deal with all that this implies unless you know the "co-founder" really, really well --- and even then it can be dicey. Instead, look and advertise for people seeking "business opportunities". Start by offering a $0 startup to others looking to start their own business built around a…
This sounds like the equivalent of “get rich dropshipping”.
You need to understand why you are "lacking" in marketing or sales. I know a lot of engineers who internally just despise ads, promoting, outreaching, pitching, etc, but they will say they "suck" at marketing. Most of the time it's not a skill issue, it's the personality and mindset.
Yeah, you are right. I feel a little bit more like that.
In many cases, you find your target market, find someone with that market as their audience, and partner up with them.
A few examples: a web dev partnering up with a designer whose clients always need websites and apps, a travel insurance company partnering with travel blogs, a health insurance company partnering up with relocation consultants.
I can offer a reading list. Hope this helps. 1. The Mom test - Rob Fitzpatrick 2. Never eat alone - Keith Ferrazzi 3. The Tim Ferriss podcast - Episode #717 with Noah Kagan 4. Crossing the chasm - Geoffrey Moore 5. Competing Against Luck - Clayton M. Christensen
I think crossing the chasm resonates more for a later stage, rather than just for getting started. I read it and felt like it really applied a lot more to my experience at a multi-hundred person company trying to become sustainable and public.
Suggestion: Rethink the "co-founder" concept. This implies equity of some sort in your company. And I doubt you are really prepared to deal with all that this implies unless you know the "co-founder" really, really well --- and even then it can be dicey. Instead, look and advertise for people seeking "business opportunities". Start by offering a $0 startup to others looking to start their own business built around a…
What’s one example of this working in the last 10 years? This sounds like the equivalent of “get rich dropshipping”.
Funnny, I am the other side of this coin. I am a founder specializing in product and marketing but I don’t write code. Having now scaled up from zero customers to 100+ I can tell you the main things I see people get wrong: -talking too much about what the product can do, rather than the result the person will get. -focusing on features, which users don’t care about, rather than outcomes which they do. -forgetting tha…
I will add that if you're a programmer first, and marketeer second, then you have to be deliberate in finding time for the marketing. It's more fun to put that off and write one-more-thing. Set aside a specific time for marketing, and be disciplined to stick to it.
Plenty of people are terrible at selling, either because they lack some skills or it's really just something they aren't interested in doing (which is why they aren't in sales).
I don't really have advice on the co-founder question but I would suggest when developing a startup that you portion out time for the not fun part of sales. There are many services that you can use to find leads in any kind of vertical you want and there are a lot of CRMs where you can email these people.
It's a combination of a lot of grunt work with perhaps disappointment, but that's how you find growth. Couple that with some of the obvious things like posting to HN, Product Hunt, etc. and having an online presence will make things happen if your product is something people want.
It's not easy and you're not alone in this dilemna.