Marketing >>> Engineering and Sales

I read your Reddit post and it was as light and fluffy as this post.

Marketing (and sales) are critical. That was obvious to me the first year I was employed when my company sold products and features that didn't even exist.

Sales: "Hey, can product X do feature Y?"

Me: "No, not at all".

Sales: "Well, it does now!"

What tips do you have for marketing? How can engineers break down limiting beliefs and approach marketing? What is marketing and when does it become sales? What have you done that is successful?

If "marketing" is what's happening on the LinkedIn home feed then I'd rather be unemployed and homeless.

I really hate sentences that say “Everyone <statement>”

It’s not the case, you’re just generalising hard.

I’ve built and sold without marketing, in fact that was my first software sale. I did it with 0 actual marketing, I just made a single reddit post.

I’m about to get users for an innovative project, with 0 marketing (outside of a reddit post) and in a medium with almost no competition.

Never ever say everyone. If you think that’s the case, you’re missing a lot of opportunities, because you’re just thinking like the average.

Marketing, storytelling, and communication are three soft skills that help you climb money tree. All three are intermingled but are essential for everyone to achieve success. Learnt it working in a corporate, honing these skills now. I totally agree with your points.

Before you didn't understand how to build a company. You learned poorly, the difficult way - yourself - rather than easily from others who have done it before. Read The Lean Startup, The Mom Test, Venture Deals, and Traction.

Well, yes, this is what everyone who runs a startup or company will tell you. People will tolerate bad products as long as it solves their problem, the hard part is getting them to use it in the first place.

Protip: it is much easier to market a good product.

Plenty of companies with amazing marketing teams tried to do NLP and then ChatGPT came along...

> solving people's problems.

This sales

> I came up with really amazing ideas and built products with neat UI, scalable backend and beautiful database structure. Something I'd feel proud to show to my engineer friends.

This does not matter, because your users don't care or see the value of scalable backend or beautiful database structure, unless they will also maintain/sell that same software, then it matters, but those customers already buy from consultancy firms(who are experts in selling crapware) so you are out competed.

how to approach marketing as a tech founder, any books/resources/courses?

Maybe it's like the hotdog vendors outside of a ballpark or concert exit.

How did you learn marketing?

i don't agree with any of the above. in fact, it's cringy, tbh.

once you appreciate the dance that all functional teams perform in an organization, you'll experience true success.

How did you find your users?