
Don’t Build a Startup, Build a Movement - froala
https://medium.com/swlh/dont-build-a-startup-build-a-movement-15c31213168
======
fortythirteen
A thinly veiled promotion for Drift. Read like sponsored content.

~~~
goatherders
Totally agree. I know of a number of services that offer a similar
feature/product.

------
TadasPaplauskas
I get the appeal from company's perspective, but there's only so many
"movements" a customer can handle. I don't want every tool I use to disrupt my
thinking - imagine how tiring that would be. Unfortunately this approach is
currently so in fashion that a simple landing page which just states it's
proposition in a clear way seems refreshing.

Also, it seems incredibly desperate and fake when a company tries to
forcefully come up with unique culture when there is none to begin with. Some
companies are naturally more interesting than others and that's okay. Not
everyone can be basecamp and not everyone needs to :)

~~~
staticelf
This. Most people just want a well functioning product or service. Personally,
I basically never want to join a "movement" just because I want to buy
something.

~~~
nxsynonym
Exactly. Companies need to stop pretending that they are selling their
customers on "disruption" or "a movement".

Consumers are not dumb. We see through all the marketing-speak and see your
product for what it is.

If its a good product at a good price that ALSO attempts to make a market
better - I'm in. Otherwise, spend less on marketing and more on making a
better product.

If you really want to "Disrupt" or create a "movement", get into the non-
profit sector. At least then we (as consumers) know you aren't full of
bullshit.

------
ungzd
Mailchimp just exploited bad behavior of Gmail, which accepts mail only from
large and reputable servers, so your own server, which had never sent spam,
will be almost blacklisted by default.

Or maybe it's a lie and Gmail happily accepts mail from properly configured
servers? But Mailchimp's marketing made people believe in former. So yes,
disruption of thinking.

Why it's called "movement" and considered good? They almost killed last
decentralized system on internet — the email. With basically FUD. All hail
disruption!

~~~
jimktrains2
I wouldn't call it a lie. I worked for a place that had an IP for years and
only sent transactional email from it (i.e. receipts) and one day we started
getting a lot of calls about no receipts. Sure enough, one of the large isps
blocked our server. (Yes, spf and doing we're setup.)

I'm not saying MailChimp is the answer. The whole system of blacklists is just
bad and causes systems like MailChimp and it's kin to pop up.

------
pdog
Building a movement is just another version of the _handicap principle_ [1].

A startup that can afford to waste time and resources on building a movement
is seen as "healthy" to potential customers. It's a reliable signal of fitness
for a company.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_principle)

------
alexasmyths
So what happens when everyone is out there trying to 'create a movement' and
'change everyone else's way of thinking'.

I mean, we could encourage people to be honest, clear and concise ... and to
build useful stuff ...

~~~
GoToRO
Applies to work life too: if you just work more then you can become rich. But
what happens when everybody works more? You get the same basic stuff, but now
you really have to work for it.

~~~
kaybe
Shouldn't there be more stuff for everyone then? Something is wrong if there
weren't.

~~~
GoToRO
Only slightly. The question is if this small increase in stuff is worth the
total degradation of ones life quality. I say it doesn't. You earn more but
then you spend that extra income on expensive stuff that you don't need just
to feel that you are still living a good life.

~~~
ttoinou

       The question is if this small increase in stuff is worth the total
       degradation of ones life quality. I say it doesn't. 
    

Oh oh, sounds like you're arguments are about marginal utility, subjective
value and economics trade off. Are you a crypto austrian ;) ?

~~~
GoToRO
I don't know what crypto austrian means :) I'm romanian.

~~~
ttoinou
Crypto-* to say that you are that * without knowing it.

Austrian refers to austrian economics (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School)
), you basically said in one sentence the 3 economic concepts I said earlier.

Spoiler : nobody ever justified communism / marxism / socialism based on this.

~~~
GoToRO
I guess I might be. Thanks for the link. I didn't know about it.

------
trjordan
I saw a great talk on this topic by Dharmesh Shah, founder of Hubspot.

He says that movements are great, but they're necessarily harder to build.
Convincing people to change the way they approach their job is _hard_, even if
you're right. Then you have to sell them software, which isn't trivial.

Their competition, Marketo, didn't build a movement. They latched on to the
existing trend of Marketing Automation, and they built a huge business, at
least as successful as HubSpot.

In both cases, the software and ideas were new, but as a company, you don't
have to be the standard-bearer for your movement. You just have to support it.

As others in this thread have argued, you don't even have to have a movement
to sell software. But fundamentally, if your software doesn't enable people
and companies to work differently, you haven't built something deeply
valuable. Outside of the early adopter SF-product-hunt folks, nobody wants to
buy new software just for kicks. People buy software to change and upgrade
their workflow. You can call it a movement or a trend or a wave, but it's
always about change. If you want to build something enduring or big or
valuable, you need the wind at your back, bringing a useful change to your
customers.

------
syllogism
The most effective types of brand signals are the ones which are expensively
risky. If your branding positions you for quality or honesty, and that doesn't
match the strengths of your product or service, that message will do really
badly for you!

It's not useful to talk about branding strategies in isolation from the
product, because people (mostly) aren't so stupid. People are listening for
signals that would be costly if false (even if they don't know that's what
they're doing). If you're succeeding by telling everyone your service is
secure and reliable, I default believe you, because courting customers who
value security and reliability is a really bad strategy if your service is
flakey and insecure.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
> If you're succeeding by telling everyone your service is secure and
> reliable, I default believe you, because courting customers who value
> security and reliability is a really bad strategy if your service is flakey
> and insecure.

I'd caution against this approach when it comes to security, unless your
"default [belief]" is already tempered with "Hey [security-knowledgeable
person I know], have you heard of [product] before?" and gauging their
reaction from the sales copy.

If you're going to trust, make sure you also verify.

~~~
syllogism
It was hard to get across concisely, but I really meant something like my
beliefs move to some extent. Yes, I verify.

------
isomorph
Brands are more valuable than products - see Nike, Coca-Cola etc. - read 'No
Logo' by Naomi Klein

------
somecallitblues
They succeeded because they built a platform that doesn't suck. Just take a
look at some competition like constant contact. Their marketing is awesome but
it's no movement. They just have a great product.

------
froala
It is marketing by the book vs freestyle marketing.

------
quantumofmalice
Brand follows product, not vice versa.

Good product allows for a good brand to be built. Mailchimp only looks
"simple" now. When it first hit, it was revolutionary in its simplicity and
effectiveness.

So build a startup, then, maybe, you can build a movement.

