Ask HN: How to prioritize a start-up blog

#1

Post by ljtobey » Wed, Oct 09, 2013, 6:28 PM UTC

I'm at an early stage with my company, head down in dev work, customer interviewing, and MVP building/iterating. However, I want to be smart about prioritizing marketing early and often, so I've been wondering about whether I should be investing time in blogging and if so, how to go about it.

To me it seems obvious it would be useful, but it's just a prioritization or basically a marketing ROI decision - I have to ask myself if it will be any more effective than getting 1 on 1 interviews through my network or through light marketing spend. (TBC, I mean references to friends of friends, linkedin, and facebook ads to generate beta testers and interviews)

Right now, I'm leaning towards not worth it. The investment to produce good, rich content is large - and the payoff will not be immediate if at all. So if I can get customers in some more direct way, I should do that until it is exhausted.

However I've seen other posts on here about how becoming a 'thought leader' in the community and getting your name out there was clutch to your initial marketing push. So wondering other thoughts on this?

Re: Ask HN: How to prioritize a start-up blog

#2

Post by visakanv » Thu, Oct 10, 2013, 12:19 PM UTC

I've always honestly thought that blogging should be thought of as a tool of thinking and exploration. It helps you refine your ideas by forcing to make vague things more precise. This improves your thinking, identifies gaps in your knowledge, invites the input of others. To me blogging is absolutely invaluable.

I'm biased though because I was a blogger from the start. Maybe the cost of blogging for me is negligible, while it might be more significant to you. My suggestion is to not to overthink it. Use the blog as a tool to outsource your thinking. Instead of guessing what people will like, write anything and see what happens. Then learn from that.

Just my $0.02.

Re: Ask HN: How to prioritize a start-up blog

#3

Post by ericthegoodking » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 5:52 AM UTC

visakanv wrote: post #2

I've always honestly thought that blogging should be thought of as a tool of thinking and exploration. It helps you refine your ideas by forcing to make vague things more precise. This improves your thinking, identifies gaps in your knowledge, invites the input of others. To me blogging is absolutely invaluable. I'm biased though because I was a blogger from the start. Maybe the cost of blogging for me is negligible,…

great advise