Launch a Business, Not a side Project
thinkvitamin.com
thinkvitamin.com
Here we have the marketer's version of the YouDidNotSpendEnoughTimeLookingAtTheIDEException, where people think an arbitrary number of hours has mystical significance because, why, if you could actually run a business in your spare time then the world would collapse on itself.
There is nothing intrinsic to marketing that says it all has to be done this week, in big consecutive chunks, for it to matter. Some of the most important forms of marketing for Internet businesses take what I like to call calendar time as opposed to wall clock time. For young sites, SEO is very intensive on calendar time but pretty light on wall clock time -- you throw a couple links at it, and then you go off and do other things to amuse yourself while waiting for Google to not hate your bones.
Similarly, blogging and similar reputation-building exercises reward stamina, not number of hours worked consecutively. (Consecutive crunching helps you play Keep Up With Techcrunch. Don't play Keep Up With Techcrunch. That is a full-time job for several people, and besides, people who read Techcrunch are by and large terrible customers who don't actually pay for the stuff they read about. Instead, write software/applications for the people who do actually pay for the stuff they read about.)
It’s very likely that the only way you’ll be able to get the word out to the masses about your new idea is by spending cold-hard-advertising-dollars.
Catastrophically wrong. Understanding PPC advertising is a useful skill, don't get me wrong, but it works a lot better after you have customer validation from your other marketing methods.
Point number #2? High5. Well put.
However, the fundamental point of the article still stands. Running a business is really hard work, and starting a business doubly so. There's a really strong correlation between effort and success, and it's always good to keep that in mind.
I disagree, the great ad agencies have been around for decades... far longer than any software company to date. It's an art that can be mastered and requires creative genius, the right brain equivalent of an engineer.
The problem is, it usually takes two to tango. Therefore, many times bad advertising is the result of 1) insufficient research by the marketer, 2) poorly executed product, or 3) a client that thinks he knows what he's doing.
If you have the means to support yourself, you can fine-tune your app and it's marketing over the course of years (as someone else mentioned, tuning internet marketing takes more "calendar time" than clock-time) and hone it until you get it right. I know we all think time moves faster on the internet, but look at how much time elapsed between Twitter's first public beta and it's breach into the public eye (only a month or so ago?).
On the other hand, if you are working on your project full-time, you have a fuse burning that is your funding and generally it's limited. From some of the conversations I've had recently, this fuse is as short as six months (and that's counting dev time before launch) and in my experience that's not enough, even if you get really lucky with media coverage.
I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here. You have to continually evaluate your current position and decide if you need to go full-time to make it to the next level, and there is no prescription for this as every project (and developer) is different. My only advice is that you put off making the jump as long as possible because when you do, you've given up one of the major advantages you have over companies that need to satisfy shareholders/employees and the cost is going to change the dynamics of your project dramatically.
Marketing is important, but a kick-ass implementation of a good idea usually sells itself without much effort.
I'd say it's more damning of the Web 2.0 companies w/ no traction which aren't X'ed out. Maybe their founders/investors just don't know when to quit?