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Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

softwarebyrob.com

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Re: Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

#11

Post by coliveira »

loewenskind wrote: post #9
kristiandupont wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you think of a person who has been advertising vaporware that you would not listen to? I don't think that I can. A similar claim is that people won't give a bad product a second chance, even after many years. But the point is, unless you launch like Cuil, you won't have many users in the beginning. So if some percentage of those few hundred people lose faith, it could be a small price to pay for the knowledge you…

>Can you think of a person who has been advertising vaporware that you would not listen to? Microsoft. I ignore anything they say until they have something I can actually buy. They've made too many announcements that were just never spoken of again.

Ok, so your example just shows that you can be super successful using the vaporware strategy...

Re: Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

#12

Post by kranner »

coliveira wrote: post #11
loewenskind wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you think of a person who has been advertising vaporware that you would not listen to? Microsoft. I ignore anything they say until they have something I can actually buy. They've made too many announcements that were just never spoken of again.

Ok, so your example just shows that you can be super successful using the vaporware strategy...

Only if that's all there was to Microsoft's success.

Re: Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

#13

Post by hopeless »

grammaton wrote: post #8

"No, these days even technical execution is mostly trivial (with a few exceptions for apps built around unique algorithms). Far more important is marketing execution." Can someone please smack this idiot?

I think in the context of "which is harder, building the product or building the market?" most programmers will admit that the coding is (almost) trivially easy compared to actually getting users. Perhaps trivial is too harsh a word but I understand what he means.

Re: Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

#14

Post by patio11 »

grammaton wrote: post #8

"No, these days even technical execution is mostly trivial (with a few exceptions for apps built around unique algorithms). Far more important is marketing execution." Can someone please smack this idiot?

He's a smart cookie, and for the types of applications he sells and suggests writing, he is absolutely right. CRUD apps have minimal execution risk. Any programmer on HN who has shipped software could write BCC, bar none. Maybe it takes a weekend, maybe a month, maybe the UI is prettier or uglier, but you cannot fail at bingo cards. You cannot fail at invoicing software, or scheduling software, etc etc. You can certainly fail to successfully sell a single copy.

Re: Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

#15

Post by loewenskind »

coliveira wrote: post #11
loewenskind wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you think of a person who has been advertising vaporware that you would not listen to? Microsoft. I ignore anything they say until they have something I can actually buy. They've made too many announcements that were just never spoken of again.

Ok, so your example just shows that you can be super successful using the vaporware strategy...

Their successful in spite of announcing a lot of vaporware, but their biggest win of all; windows was top secret until it was released, right?

Re: Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

#16

Post by j_baker »

nihilocrat wrote: post #10

After reading Zed Shaw's post yesterday about how "Long Beards" are getting marginalized by "Product Guys" I cringe when I hear bullshit like this: Ideas (and in most cases even the code itself) is worth little. It’s marketing that makes the startup. (Mind you, ideas are worth little, but the rest... yeah)

Don't take this the wrong way, but why did it take a Zed rant to see through this? Usually "department x is more important than anyone else" arguments are flawed to begin with.

Re: Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

#17

Post by patio11 »

wccrawford wrote: post #3

Reason #3: The boy who cried vaporware. If you end up with a history of advertising vaporware, nobody will listen when you finally get it right. If you are super amazing and you can get your first product to market, this obviously doesn't apply. But most people aren't. And most of those who do, they're just lucky. Reason #4: Duke Nukem Forever will be out any day now. If you take too long to get it to market, your pr…

Can anyone recall the names of the two products I announced on my blog and then abandoned for various reasons? Was anyone here even aware that happened at all?

Just failing isn't nearly enough to get people to remember you. You have to be truly epic to be remembered for that. (How many enterprise deployments go years late for every Slashdot joke about Duke Nukem again?)

Re: Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

#18

Post by nlavezzo »

Another reason you may want to delay pre-launch marketing is that if you plan on patenting your product you can invalidate your ability to do so in certain juristictions (including most of the EU) simply by "disclosing" your invention.

If your landing page could be construed as an "offer for sale", and goes up more than one year in advance of your patent application, you've lost your ability to patent protect the idea in the US as well.

Of course most startups these days (the ones reading HN at least) are working on web apps and patents are not as commmonly employed. If you ARE working on a patentable idea though, you should do some research and consult with an IP lawyer before you go and put up any public marketing material before you have applications in to the jurisdictions where you want protection.

Re: Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

#19

Post by kloncks »

I absolutely hate hearing these things:

Remember, ideas are worth nothing. And these days, even your code is worth very little.

Alright, so creativity and idea-making worth nothing. Technical expertise to make it? nothing.

Honestly, what's left? The business side of things?

Maybe this article just bothered me because I was getting similar vibes to "you can just have an idea and hire some programming monkey to create it for you."

Or as he said it: You and I could get together and clone almost any popular web application in a month. Or for that matter, we could simply buy a clone script. Twitter, Facebook, eBay, Groupon, Digg, and about 50 others are available for around $100 each.

Re: Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

#20

Post by arethuza »

grammaton wrote: post #8

"No, these days even technical execution is mostly trivial (with a few exceptions for apps built around unique algorithms). Far more important is marketing execution." Can someone please smack this idiot?

I can think of rather more companies who failed because there was no market for their products than companies who failed because while there was a market the product didn't work. Indeed I have been involved in spending tens of millions of investors money learning this fact during the Dot Com years.

If people really need your product then they will excuse it being a bit crap (Exhibit A: most enterprise software). However, if your product is a work of technical genius but doesn't do anything useful for anyone then it is surely doomed.

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