
Ask HN: Do developers dislike marketing their own projects? - mijustin
I've had a number of conversations with other developers who seem to have disdain for marketing their own projects (apps they've built, open source projects, etc...)<p>Are you a developer that dislikes marketing your own stuff? What don't you like about marketing?
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stevenameyer
I can't speak for everyone but I feel like a large part of why I'm not very
excited by doing marketing of a project is because I feel like the project
should be good enough to market it's self.

I think developers have a sense that if I focus on making a good product
everyone will want to use it so I don't have to worry about marketing. Even
though a lot of us know that marketing is very important we feel that by
focusing on marketing there is a sense of my work isn't good enough to stand
up by it's self.

~~~
mijustin
I wonder if this is because there's a difference between how developers
discover "new things" and how consumers + businesses discover solutions.

For example, developers hear about new technology, open source projects, and
products on HN, on mailing lists, etc...

Businesses + consumers are generally reached through marketing and promotion.

~~~
stevenameyer
Maybe, but I feel it's a little more the result of developers feeling like
marketing is pushing their product on someone. I think the perception of
posting something someones done on HN is more here's something I did, what do
people who know what they're talking about think about? Where as they see
marketing a little more like, how can I tryick this user into using my
product.

------
ronyeh
As a developer, I definitely feel much more productive if I'm coding rather
than cooking up some scheme to market my apps better.

But it is definitely a struggle. I know marketing is super important, because
if I don't do it, I won't get enough customers. If I don't get enough
customers, then I can't test cool new product ideas and actually see if I'm
building the right product for people.

Even if I dislike it, I have to do it. Otherwise, I'm doing myself a
disservice.

So, after saying all that... :-)

<marketing>

I make iPad/iPhone apps called Tiny Piano and Tiny Guitar. Tiny Piano has
reached 7.9 million (free) downloads, and you can check it out here:
<https://itunes.apple.com/app/id477014214>

</marketing>

~~~
mijustin
What's your biggest struggle with marketing?

~~~
ronyeh
My biggest "struggle" is basically what you identified: that I (as a
developer) don't like to do it.

But I force myself to, since in the long run, I know it will be worthwhile. So
I occasionally write blog posts [1], very occasionally tweet [2], and
sometimes I even tend to my Facebook page [3].

I guess one real struggle is that I have no idea whether marketing works, or
how well it works. It's pretty hard to quantify (sure, there's google
analytics, etc). But when I add a feature to my code base, it feels concrete.
Spending a day doing "marketing" doesn't feel as concrete or quantifiable.

[1] <http://blog.squarepoet.com/>

[2] <https://twitter.com/squarepoet>

[3] <https://www.facebook.com/tinypiano>

~~~
orangethirty
That's a great point. Not being able to measure short terms results is keeping
you from achieving then over the long term. Fascinating. Though I think that
you are missing insight into getting short term marketing results. They do
exist. You can actually get too many of them. I reason that you have not been
properly introduced to real marketing. It's quite the same as software as it
requires you to engineer scalable systems. It's as challenging too because it
requires a lot of data analysis. I wonde if hackers like you would benefit
from an introduction to marketing from the POV of data.

~~~
ronyeh
Do you have any pointers for us hackers? One thing I've used in the past is
posting bit.ly links, which can give me some data. But it seems like I'd have
to participate in many many different forums & blogs for these links to my
products to start having a noticeable effect on my sales.

I'm sure a 3-day crash course on marketing my products would be very valuable
for me.

~~~
orangethirty
May you email me?

------
xauronx
I have no interest in marketing. I have no where near enough time to develop
things, let alone market them. Not to mention, I'm a terrible salesman. To me,
it's not about "How much can I trick someone into paying for this?" but "Meh,
how much is it worth I guess?". Also, I'm way too honest about what something
does, and tend to forget (or take for granted) the things that I assume it
should do (and as such, forget to market those things).

~~~
mijustin
Tell me more: have you tried building and selling your own apps?

~~~
xauronx
I have one app in the apple app store that never really had much potential,
but I just wanted to get something released. I have a few things in progress
but haven't really started thinking about marketing past setting up a website.
Knowing which review sites to contact, writing up catchy descriptions and
e-mailing vital people in the app business is it's own little expertise at
this point.

------
orangethirty
A lot of programmers do not like or do it because they simply see no value to
it. It's not that they don't "get it." They do. The problem arises when they
decide to build a business. Their apathy towards marketing ends up killing
their startup. A business is not the code but it's marketing. And programmers
fail hard with that reality. That's why patio11 says that a programmer who can
market is an unstoppable force. It's true.

------
pdenya
I don't have enough time to deal with marketing. I have a limited amount of
free time as it is and I'd rather spend it doing something I love (developing)
rather than something that is required to make money off the the thing that I
love. It's not that I _hate_ marketing necessarily but there are 1000 other
things I'd rather be doing at any given time.

~~~
mijustin
Are the projects you're working on "for profit" (as in, is your aim to make
money with them)?

~~~
pdenya
Yes, they're intended to be "for profit". Some of them even make a profit.

~~~
mijustin
Interesting: and have you done marketing for those? Or was the traffic largely
organic? (if it was organic, how did folks originally hear about it?)

------
codeonfire
Once you market it and take money for it, you have to support it. It may not
be worth it to market it if 24x7 support costs outweigh any revenue. Non-
developers are never going to do any support or development so of course they
are going to seem way more eager to market.

------
mindcrime
_Are you a developer that dislikes marketing your own stuff?_

No, we[1] don't mind marketing our stuff[2] at all. We post links[3][4][5] to
our stuff on various forums, answer questions on Quora[6] that promote our
stuff, write blog entries[7], share stuff on LinkedIn, Twitter[8], etc., etc.,
etc. as we go about our business of "putting the Enterprise in Enterprise
Social Network".

If you have any more questions, feel free to contact me at prhodes (at)
fogbeam (dot) com.

All joking aside, I guess some developers may have an aversion to marketing.
Probably more just don't know a lot about marketing and promotion. I'm no
expert at it myself, but I try to learn more every day. These days I spend as
much time reading marketing books as I do technical books, and terms like
"SEO", "positioning", "differentiation", "value proposition", "unique selling
proposition", "solution selling", "SPIN selling", etc. have entered my
lexicon.

 _What don't you like about marketing?_

It's hard. And I'm a n00b at it. Therefore it sucks. No, really, it's kind of
fun in a way, and I enjoy learning and stretching myself in new directions.
But it can be frustrating dealing with so many things that I haven't had to
worry about in the past.

[1]: <http://www.fogbeam.com>

[2]: <http://www.fogbeam.com/products.html>

[3]: <https://github.com/fogbeam/Neddick>

[4]: <https://github.com/fogbeam/Quoddy>

[5]: <https://github.com/fogbeam/Heceta>

[6]: <http://www.quora.com/Who-are-Jives-competitors>

[7]: <http://fogbeam.blogspot.com>

[8]: <https://twitter.com/fogbeamlabs>

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pcunite
I love marketing my own applications. Sadly, it results in more emails, phone
calls and other "work" that add stress because the product is not finished. I
really need a developer but they want more than I pay myself!

Tell me what you think? <http://goo.gl/PkUWP>

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kefs
I'm not sure of the reasoning, but this is partly true for me. If the interest
in my app/site is organic, and not solicited, my reception is much warmer..
but otherwise it just feels fake.. so, I leave the marketing to the marketing
folks.

~~~
mijustin
I wonder if there is a general aversion amongst developers towards "self-
promotion". For example: even organic traffic is somewhat "self-promoted".
What do you think?

------
dear
Maybe an extreme case. I've known a developer who kept marketing his work non-
stop to everyone and the fact that he worked/works for Google.

------
sharemywin
Marketing is a different job than developing that reuqires tottally diffrent
skills. One is logical and one is usually based on soft skills.

