Counterpoint to Jessica L’s advice: Why Startups Should use Marketing as Sonar | Hacker News Reader

Counterpoint to Jessica L’s advice: Why Startups Should use Marketing as Sonar

peternixey.com

1 pointpetenixey6 comments

I don't think pointing to 'basecamp' as an example of people doing marketing wrong is the best path.

And I very much agree that you should focus on sales first and marketing later. Proper marketing burns money like there is no tomorrow, it can distort a bad picture into one that superficially looks good, it distracts you from talking to your customers, the ones that already picked you.

There is a right time to start marketing, as long as you're pre-series A, if you can't make virality (the cheapest form of marketing) work for you in that your customers are willing to go to bat for you then you still need to work harder on the product.

There is a lot to harp on out there when it comes to examples of companies bad at marketing but 37signals isn't one of them, after all even the author is (unwittingly, and apparently against his will) part of their marketing arm.

Before you have a good grip on your product life-cycle marketing can hinder rather than help. Once you're solidly entrenched and you're reaching the limits of your autonomous growth marketing can boost you to the next level. But starting that push too early is like lighting the second stage of the rocket before the first one has detached.

Perhaps I didn't express it very well but I was actually making exactly the opposite point. That 37Signals is excellent at marketing but had they not been they might have never discovered the niche for Basecamp.

Marketing doesn't have to be an expensive business. Startups are in a great position to beget high quality PR and to do guerrilla promotion. Many many fail even to do that and in so doing also fail to find their natural markets.

Maybe you should expand on that point a bit in the post then? Right now all marketing is identical and if you're aiming at something that is not costly but that will be effective then you could give some examples?

I'm sure that would help a lot of people in that situation.

Basecamp was 37signals first product, what do you mean with 'if they had not been excellent at marketing they might have never discovered the niche for Basecamp'?

I literally just added a paragraph in to clarify that. I'm not sure I understand your question though, could you rephrase it?

Well, you suggest that basecamp was 'discovered' due to excellence in marketing, whereas as far as I understand it it was built in conjunction with their customers. So they were concentrating on selling rather than on marketing at that phase of their existence.

Replying here because I can't go any deeper...

@jacquesm You make a good point. I wanted to show that even a product as tremendously successful as Basecamp can still find local minimas where nobody wants it. However as you say, I'm not sure I actually made that very well so have cut those paragraphs.

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