81–89 of 89 posts
Some people seem to equate marketing with the promotion of existing products. Some others see marketing as helping to determine the products / services the company should build.
Are there better terms for these different functions in an organization?
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I'm not sure it's narrow mindedness, I feel like it's mostly principles and not seeing that marketing isn't only spam, lies and shit. I think most engineers associate marketing with sleazy SEO/affiliate/self-promotion people who offer little to no added value to the web, society or humanity, who will lie, cheat and steal to make a buck. Most engineers don't want to be like those people in any way, and that's a good t…
I think your view on this will depend on what do you believe the distribution of good vs. evil in marketing looks like. Is it like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | ---> /---- EVIL GOOD Or like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | -> |\ | \ EVIL GOOD I personally believe it's the latter. I added arrows indicating opposing incentives at personal level, and I believe the profit motive is much stronger than personal morals, for two main rea…
That’s a great quip. Was talking to a friend that works in banking (fund management) who made a similar point; bankers aren’t necessarily evil. It’s just a modern bankers view on the world is mostly in the form of rows in a spreadsheet that need optimizing. Whether those rows represent green energy or weapons, and what the consequences of trading in them are, are not things that a clearly visible to a banker on a busy day. The bankers view is just numbers going up or down.
I’ve often found engineers really struggle to jump over their own shadows when it comes to marketing. Things like... - “Marketing is evil!” ... perhaps but it’s also a necessary evil if you want anyone using your product - “Build it and they will come” ... except they won’t unless you tell people - “I hate spam/push messages/ads therefor everyone else must do to” ... but engineers tend to be the grumpiest about this…
I'm not sure it's narrow mindedness, I feel like it's mostly principles and not seeing that marketing isn't only spam, lies and shit. I think most engineers associate marketing with sleazy SEO/affiliate/self-promotion people who offer little to no added value to the web, society or humanity, who will lie, cheat and steal to make a buck. Most engineers don't want to be like those people in any way, and that's a good t…
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About the three problems, I agree about the first two; debt definitely has impact, but I'm not sure how big and in what forms. You're probably right, though. I'll need to think more about it. For instance, there's definitely debt-based pressure on the low-wealth end of society, which makes people work on things they otherwise wouldn't. But what about the high end, the decisionmakers? Do they face similar debt-driven…
I guess what got me on this tack was the thought that advertising serves vendors. It should in the sense that they're the ones paying for it, but a bunch of problems arise therefrom. What would it look like if I, the consumer, took that responsibility on myself, and was willing to pay for it? There's a case to be made that people get the marketing they deserve, as evidenced in their voting patterns and buying behavio…
I hate it when people make this case, or in general anything along the lines of "revealed preferences". This hides a certain divide-and-conquer that's happening. A single individual can't, in general, influence the market with their purchasing behavior. A thousand buyers simultaneously switching vendors would register on someone's radar, but real buyers are uncoordinated. Consider the 3.5mm audio jack and phones. If all the people who were unhappy about Apple having the "courage" to drop it would band together and announce that they'll hold off with upgrading their iPhones or switch to Samsung, Apple would quickly reconsider. As it is, you've got lots of people complaining, but buying anyway, because they know they alone can't affect the market, and they need a decent phone.
This is related to a general observation that you can only "vote with your wallet" among the options available on the market. You don't have a way to vote for feature combination that isn't offered, for a product that doesn't exist.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess what got me on this tack was the thought that advertising serves vendors. It should in the sense that they're the ones paying for it, but a bunch of problems arise therefrom. What would it look like if I, the consumer, took that responsibility on myself, and was willing to pay for it? There's a case to be made that people get the marketing they deserve, as evidenced in their voting patterns and buying behavio…
> There's a case to be made that people get the marketing they deserve, as evidenced in their voting patterns and buying behavior. I hate it when people make this case, or in general anything along the lines of "revealed preferences". This hides a certain divide-and-conquer that's happening. A single individual can't, in general, influence the market with their purchasing behavior. A thousand buyers simultaneously sw…
Whether a bunch of buyers could accept this, decide to coordinate, etc., and what it would look like, is the thing I'm turning over. Like, to get really wild: what if you could join a buyer's group that restricted you? The downside would be a loss of freedom, but the upside would be access to market power. We seem to be OK making this bargain on the sell side with our employment...
There are obviously versions of this that could never work, but it would be very interesting if you could find one that could!
Marketing can be a real struggle for engineers, they are often so focused on "proving" what works, they feel marketing or promotion somehow pollutes the purity of their invention. They are also REALLY bad at the aesthetics of design. They are often dead wrong about this moral high-ground, good brand/marketing can be the difference between success and failure. I've lived in this difficult world for decades, started ou…
> Marketing can be a real struggle for engineers ... They are also REALLY bad at the aesthetics of design. This is a pretty sweeping generalisation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure it's narrow mindedness, I feel like it's mostly principles and not seeing that marketing isn't only spam, lies and shit. I think most engineers associate marketing with sleazy SEO/affiliate/self-promotion people who offer little to no added value to the web, society or humanity, who will lie, cheat and steal to make a buck. Most engineers don't want to be like those people in any way, and that's a good t…
I think your view on this will depend on what do you believe the distribution of good vs. evil in marketing looks like. Is it like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | ---> /---- EVIL GOOD Or like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | -> |\ | \ EVIL GOOD I personally believe it's the latter. I added arrows indicating opposing incentives at personal level, and I believe the profit motive is much stronger than personal morals, for two main rea…
Been looking for a guide like this. Recently finished an MVP as a personal project, and was thinking about how promote it. It's a daunting task. It's nice to think that l337 design (well... It's functional, hopefully) and a Reddit/HN post will be enough, but that's probably analogous to writing the first test record to your dev database, techwise... On top of that, confidence is a big thing. What if my core hypothesi…
As someone who has turned side-projects into acquired products and companies, your primary focus should be learning as much as possible and being as humble as possible (to facilitate the learning process). Chances are overwhelming that your current product "sucks" so to speak, but you should remain confident that you can likely get from "it sucks" to "it's actually pretty useful" fairly quickly by getting it in front…
I always enjoy https://marketingexamples.com/ it’s a good one for lot’s of different ideas and how others did it.