Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

https://www.tomasmartty.com/start-marketing-the-day-you-start-coding-by-rob-walling/

by tmartty • 7 years ago

104 37 7 years ago

kristianc5• 7 years ago

It’s important to distinguish what most people reading this are likely to consider ‘marketing’ with what actually made these businesses successful.

All of the businesses cited succeeded because they established a differentiated position in the market - GMail because it gave you 10x more storage than was available at the time, and a conversational interface; WhatsApp because it meant that international SMS was now free; Tesla because it sit at the intersection of eco-friendliness and premium design.

Saying that GMail is just about messages, Tesla just about electric cars does a disservice to what actually makes these businesses exceptional. And you do genuinely need that differentiation, otherwise all you have to compete on is price.

I’d be worried that someone reading this would take the idea that all you need is an average business idea and some growth-hackery business tactics like a landing page and Facebook ads, and presto you have a business.

Most businesses do fail because of poor marketing, but not marketing as the HN crowd generally sees it.

soneca• 7 years ago

Completely agree.

WhatsApp because it meant that international SMS was now free

Not sure the exact meaning of "international" here. In Brazil SMS was not free at all, so Whatsapp became a free SMS for all, with bonus of a nice chat UI that made easy to be in conversations (contrary to any phone's SMS UI at the time), groups, images (becoming a MMS for free too).

So, a 100x better SMS for free. No wonder it exploded.

But the use case was mostly for local messages, not international messages.

kristianc5• 7 years ago

Agree - I put international SMS as in some countries (such as the UK) providers were beginning to bundle ‘free’ SMS before WhatsApp came along - in these markets international SMS / Voice / MMS for expats, students etc was a big deal. You’re right to point out though that in many countries, WhatsApp was the first cross platform free SMS of any kind.

metalrain• 7 years ago

Somehow I read title of book like this. As developer I should market the day I started coding. Like I started coding 17 years ago, I may know some stuff, hire me please.

It's funny how different perspectives we have.

tmartty6• 7 years ago

I don't understand.. noone's trying to get hired here, Rob is a well known guy in the ecosystem and I'm just a developer with my own agency.

What's your perspective?

michaelbuckbee• 7 years ago

Big fan of Rob and his work, for those unfamiliar with him he's one of the founders of MicroConf, half of the "Startups for the Rest of Us" podcast and built and then sold Drip (an Email Service).

Whether or not you're seeking to build your own microsaas or you're going full VC funding I feel pretty strongly that you'll see the time spent reading his book as worthwhile.

Here's a direct link to it (it's not gated on his site, so this seems fine to share)

https://robwalling.com/assets/ebook.pdf

enraged_camel• 7 years ago

>Here's a direct link to it (it's not gated on his site, so this seems fine to share)

Yes, it does indeed say that on the second page. :)

melling5• 7 years ago

Marketing usually costs money.

If you’re trying to bootstrap, you probably should wait until your product is finished? There are very few free avenues for self promotion on the Internet for “code”, other than a blog.

tomhoward2• 7 years ago

It doesn't need to if you're doing something highly valuable for a specific subset of potential customers.

I don't know what it says in the book, but I'd expect the message would be similar to the YC advice, which is to start talking very early and frequently to potential and existing customers, to ensure that what you’re building is highly valuable to them.

YC partners have often said that the companies that achieve the biggest success are the ones who are the most active in talking to existing/potential customers.

They also note that the ones who spend money on paid marketing before they have a highly valuable product and organic (i.e., free) growth are the ones who fail.

melling5• 7 years ago

Talking to potential is customers is more about making sure you’re solving someone’s real problem, as opposed to “build it and they will come”. That should probably fall under a different category than marketing. We’re overloading the term, which could lead to confusion.

Your “advice” would fall under the “getting your first 1000 users” trope:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajayyadav/2017/05/16/how-to-get...

TruffleLabs• 7 years ago

Don’t wait!

From the moment you decide to pursue the idea, you have to do marketing, advertising, and public relations.

Yes, there is a cost. That’s the reality.

tmartty6• 7 years ago

And it's usually a hard investment to do since what it most requires is time. And time is extremely valuable when you're first pursuing an idea and starting a project.

o-__-o2• 7 years ago

I would not advertise until you have 1000 cold calls under your belt and a product. You will waste money advertising an alpha product. Your 20/80 customers won’t come from an ad. Press releases are your friend, Ive lost track of how many companies I’ve found with potential by simply watching the news wire the comes through my investment account website/app

o-__-o2• 7 years ago

Doesn’t cost anything to make PowerPoint pitch decks. Doesn’t cost anything to write use-case documents. Doesn’t cost anything to throw a lead generation page up on GitHub. Costs a few bucks to get a domain name. Doesn’t cost anything to cold call 10 businesses every morning before you start coding.

I think this is a stepping stone entrepreneurs learn only after a few failures. My last startup went from 0-90k in 5 months with simple marketing. Having premade material to give out means the difference between a follow up to a cold call and never following up with them again.. I’ve had both happen, so I always spend an hour or two selling, then marketing before doing any kind of coding or other deeply technical work

rb808• 7 years ago

Some good advice I heard here a few years ago is start marketing well before you start coding. Eg create a website, start your advertising, look for customers while providing a white label product or even just a promise to deliver later. Its a great way to find out if anyone is interested. If you can attract actual customers then you can start coding. If you have trouble getting any attention maybe you have the wrong product.

kristianc5• 7 years ago

This may have been good advice a few years ago, but things do move on. People are wary giving their email address to the promise of a service and will normally now be hesitant to engage without some kind of product in return.

What’s more, having people actually use and pay for your product is much better validation than people saying they will (not always the same thing)

itake• 7 years ago

I feel the opposite. The early days of the internets (2000-2010) spam was crazy and annoying. I hated giving out my email because I would just get even more unwanted email and I knew I would forget my password to any new account I made.

Today, we have much better spam filters, companies realizing sending unwanted spam only hurts them (so they offer unsub), and password managers.

I would signup for a product just to see more info if I was curious about their offering.

tmartty6• 7 years ago

I don't think people are that wary about giving their email addresses. If you're solving a problem for them, they'll probably subscribe.

But yeah, of course, having people actually use and pay for your product is the ultimate validation.

amelius• 7 years ago

Sounds similar to the idea of crowdfunding.

mpurham• 7 years ago

This!!! I have started many "side projects" with the notion that once I build it I will then find customers etc. This is terrible thinking and most of the times lead me to think my idea is horrible, when in reality I have done nothing in terms of marketing. So yes I fully agree with start marketing the day you start coding.

When I started https://mattebot.co/ I made sure to make marketing a top priority for products I release in the future.

iudqnolq2• 7 years ago

FYI on Android Firefox Preview social icons are behind heading. No idea if that's true for other mobile browsers.

awinter-py• 7 years ago

fascinated by the 'ideas aren't worth that much, tell everyone' argument

have been trying this and every time my splash page gets a click I get nervous (cloudprogress.io).

certainly lights a fire under me on the prelaunch work though

werber2• 7 years ago

A lot of what is referred to as marketing at the end of the article sounds like ux

tmartty6• 7 years ago

You mean the 'Validate your idea, build a prototype, show it to people, gather feedback, improve it and keep going' part? That's far from UX, and also far from marketing.. those are steps I'd take if starting a new project. BUT all those steps should be intersected with marketing from day one.

werber2• 7 years ago

Hmm, that’s what I think ux should do, what the marketing department was doing at my last job and why they were at war

Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding

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