Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Side Project Marketing Checklist

sideprojectchecklist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 70 posts

Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist

#51

Post by closed »

encoderer wrote: post #37
closed wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, if a person has to make a decision under uncertainty, and a priori favors neither group A or B, then they might as well use any visitor information available to them to guide their choice. They just shouldn't be too confident they've made the correct choice.

You are just using noise then. It's not a matter of opinion, it's statistics.

If you are waiting for N observations, so that a NHST will have some level of power, and you assume each observations is drawn from the same distribution (as your test likely does), then you do not see each observation as noise.

You will just be acting under reduced certainty, but if you have to act, any information is better than no information.

(I'd be very interested to hear your statistical explanation).

Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist

#52

Post by encoderer »

closed wrote: post #51
encoderer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just using noise then. It's not a matter of opinion, it's statistics.

If you are waiting for N observations, so that a NHST will have some level of power, and you assume each observations is drawn from the same distribution (as your test likely does), then you do not see each observation as noise. You will just be acting under reduced certainty, but if you have to act, any information is better than no information. (I'd be very interested to hear your statistical explanation).

The trouble is disproving the null hypothesis. In your test, if one variant beats another, you take that as a weak signal that one may be better than the other. The data doesn't support this. Without applying a standard to your p-value, you cannot disprove the null hypothesis: that your variant is likely no better or worse.

I'm not a statistician, but I've run a lot of b-tests.

Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist

#53

Post by closed »

encoderer wrote: post #52
closed wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are waiting for N observations, so that a NHST will have some level of power, and you assume each observations is drawn from the same distribution (as your test likely does), then you do not see each observation as noise. You will just be acting under reduced certainty, but if you have to act, any information is better than no information. (I'd be very interested to hear your statistical explanation).

The trouble is disproving the null hypothesis. In your test, if one variant beats another, you take that as a weak signal that one may be better than the other. The data doesn't support this. Without applying a standard to your p-value, you cannot disprove the null hypothesis: that your variant is likely no better or worse. I'm not a statistician, but I've run a lot of b-tests.

If one variant beats another, even with very few observations, the data DOES support that one is better. It's just that you might not be very confident that one is better.

The key to understanding this situation statistically is by reframing the way you think about tests away from an all-or-nothing NHST, and toward either confidence intervals, or bayesian estimation.

That is, some kind of measure of (loosely) uncertainty around a parameter (or entire model) of interest.

Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist

#54

Post by nugator »

gallerdude wrote: post #38

I'm always unsure about marketing. I do think that the balance between the thing you're creating, and the marketing of it is a clean 50/50 split. Creating something great is extremely important, but telling people about it is equally so. One of biggest lies is "if you build it, they will come." You actually have to grab them by the necks, and show them what you've built. I think the second biggest lie is the opposite…

Can you point a newbie indie gamer in the right direction to finding a good selection of quality indie games?

Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist

#55

Post by danenania »

jgmmo wrote: post #44

I dislike this list. It's too much, and does not discern between effectiveness. It's like they are equally weighted tasks. This is absolutely not the case. Half of this is common sense, 'make an about page, make a contact page', that is basic... Then there's a ton of stuff here that is hypothetically cool to do but practically speaking will not be productive. As a marketer I can tell you that there is some pareto opt…

This is basically the advice of Traction[1], which is the best book I've come across on this topic. They recommend experimenting with acquisition channels until you find one or two that produce great results, milking them for all they're worth, then continuing to experiment in order to find the new channel(s) that will get you to the next stage.

That said, there is still value in seeing many potential channels laid out in one place, so that you can consider all of them, weigh them against each other, and potentially try out a bunch before zeroing in on the best ones.

1: https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Cu...

Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist

#56

Post by suyash »

Love the list, quite comprehensive. To any beginner or even pro - my advice would be to cut out 80% items from the checklist and nail down the 20%. Your job is to which which is the 20% which will give you 80% bang for your buck.

Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist

#57

Post by bayonetz »

jgmmo wrote: post #44

I dislike this list. It's too much, and does not discern between effectiveness. It's like they are equally weighted tasks. This is absolutely not the case. Half of this is common sense, 'make an about page, make a contact page', that is basic... Then there's a ton of stuff here that is hypothetically cool to do but practically speaking will not be productive. As a marketer I can tell you that there is some pareto opt…

If nobody knows which 20% of tactics gets you 80% of the results for any given product, then it's good that the list covers all the possible things. By definition of that rule, you can't generally weight any of the items above the others. If I'm misreading, and you are saying you know the best 20% of tactics in general or the quickest meta-strategy for finding the 20% for a given a product, please share. That would be the hardest part, especially for the target audience of this: non-marketers/new marketers.

Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist

#58

Post by amiraliakbari »

karlhughes wrote: post #45
jgmmo wrote: post #44

I dislike this list. It's too much, and does not discern between effectiveness. It's like they are equally weighted tasks. This is absolutely not the case. Half of this is common sense, 'make an about page, make a contact page', that is basic... Then there's a ton of stuff here that is hypothetically cool to do but practically speaking will not be productive. As a marketer I can tell you that there is some pareto opt…

It is intentionally too much. My goal with the list was to make something exhaustive. The hard part - the reason companies have whole marketing departments - is to prioritize and execute on it. There's definitely some common sense stuff here, but for devs who are marketing their first side project, it might be helpful to have more rather than less. Finally, I welcome PR's on the project! It's open source and I'm look…

I really liked the tools listed for each task. Usually I encounter a nice logo, newsletter, landing page, etc. and wonder how such things can be made without being distracted from the main product.

Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist

#60

Post by Silhouette »

encoderer wrote: post #52
closed wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are waiting for N observations, so that a NHST will have some level of power, and you assume each observations is drawn from the same distribution (as your test likely does), then you do not see each observation as noise. You will just be acting under reduced certainty, but if you have to act, any information is better than no information. (I'd be very interested to hear your statistical explanation).

The trouble is disproving the null hypothesis. In your test, if one variant beats another, you take that as a weak signal that one may be better than the other. The data doesn't support this. Without applying a standard to your p-value, you cannot disprove the null hypothesis: that your variant is likely no better or worse. I'm not a statistician, but I've run a lot of b-tests.

You're ignoring closed's point that "a priori favors neither group A or B".

If you are starting from a neutral position, considering two possible alternatives with neither presumed to be more favourable than the other, then any statistical test based on using one outcome as null and the other as alternative hypothesis is fundamentally inappropriate. Any such test inherently favours one outcome over the other, rather than starting from a neutral position.

As closed is trying to explain, if you really do start from neutral then even a tiny number of data points is still better than no data at all. You shouldn't have too much confidence in whether you're really making the right decision, but if you have to make a decision, you are still more likely to make the right one if you go with what the data tells you, even if it's only telling you by a very small margin.

Post reply on HN