
Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding - tmartty
https://www.tomasmartty.com/start-marketing-the-day-you-start-coding-by-rob-walling/
======
kristianc
It’s important to distinguish what most people reading this are likely to
consider ‘marketing’ with what actually made these businesses successful.

All of the businesses cited succeeded because they established a
differentiated position in the market - GMail because it gave you 10x more
storage than was available at the time, and a conversational interface;
WhatsApp because it meant that international SMS was now free; Tesla because
it sit at the intersection of eco-friendliness and premium design.

Saying that GMail is just about messages, Tesla just about electric cars does
a disservice to what actually makes these businesses exceptional. And you do
genuinely need that differentiation, otherwise all you have to compete on is
price.

I’d be worried that someone reading this would take the idea that all you need
is an average business idea and some growth-hackery business tactics like a
landing page and Facebook ads, and presto you have a business.

Most businesses do fail because of poor marketing, but not marketing as the HN
crowd generally sees it.

~~~
soneca
Completely agree.

> _WhatsApp because it meant that international SMS was now free_

Not sure the exact meaning of _" international"_ here. In Brazil SMS was not
free at all, so Whatsapp became a free SMS for all, with bonus of a nice chat
UI that made easy to be in conversations (contrary to any phone's SMS UI at
the time), groups, images (becoming a MMS for free too).

So, a 100x better SMS for free. No wonder it exploded.

But the use case was mostly for local messages, not _international_ messages.

~~~
kristianc
Agree - I put international SMS as in some countries (such as the UK)
providers were beginning to bundle ‘free’ SMS before WhatsApp came along - in
these markets international SMS / Voice / MMS for expats, students etc was a
big deal. You’re right to point out though that in many countries, WhatsApp
was the first cross platform free SMS of any kind.

~~~
melling
This conversation has not been very productive. Basically it’s a pedantic
discussion about the meaning of marketing.

I recommend this [updated] 10-year-old article about finding your first 1000
customers:

[https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-
fans/](https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/)

Much has been written about the idea:

[https://seths.blog/2009/12/first-
organize-1000/](https://seths.blog/2009/12/first-organize-1000/)

[https://nowspeed.com/seth-godins-latest-book-
tribes/](https://nowspeed.com/seth-godins-latest-book-tribes/)

[http://jumpcut.com/blog/kevin-kelly-1000-true-
fans/](http://jumpcut.com/blog/kevin-kelly-1000-true-fans/)

~~~
redis_mlc
FYI: Patreon is the realization of 1000 True Fans, at least for musicians.
Except only 50 - 250 patrons are needed to subsist full-time, much less than
1,000.

------
michaelbuckbee
Big fan of Rob and his work, for those unfamiliar with him he's one of the
founders of MicroConf, half of the "Startups for the Rest of Us" podcast and
built and then sold Drip (an Email Service).

Whether or not you're seeking to build your own microsaas or you're going full
VC funding I feel pretty strongly that you'll see the time spent reading his
book as worthwhile.

Here's a direct link to it (it's not gated on his site, so this seems fine to
share)

[https://robwalling.com/assets/ebook.pdf](https://robwalling.com/assets/ebook.pdf)

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Here's a direct link to it (it's not gated on his site, so this seems fine
to share)

Yes, it does indeed say that on the second page. :)

------
rb808
Some good advice I heard here a few years ago is start marketing well before
you start coding. Eg create a website, start your advertising, look for
customers while providing a white label product or even just a promise to
deliver later. Its a great way to find out if anyone is interested. If you can
attract actual customers then you can start coding. If you have trouble
getting any attention maybe you have the wrong product.

~~~
kristianc
This may have been good advice a few years ago, but things do move on. People
are wary giving their email address to the promise of a service and will
normally now be hesitant to engage without some kind of product in return.

What’s more, having people actually use and pay for your product is much
better validation than people saying they will (not always the same thing)

~~~
itake
I feel the opposite. The early days of the internets (2000-2010) spam was
crazy and annoying. I hated giving out my email because I would just get even
more unwanted email and I knew I would forget my password to any new account I
made.

Today, we have much better spam filters, companies realizing sending unwanted
spam only hurts them (so they offer unsub), and password managers.

I would signup for a product just to see more info if I was curious about
their offering.

~~~
iudqnolq
Is anyone else comforted when they see an email signup is through list-
manage.com?

I trust that at absolute worst I can email MailChimp and they will actually
act on my desire to unsubscribe, and I know that almost certainly that won't
be needed because of their enforcement of reasonable unsubscribe.

I find it ironic because it seems they wanted as anodyne a domain as possible
so they wouldn't clash with their customers' brands.

------
mpurham
This!!! I have started many "side projects" with the notion that once I build
it I will then find customers etc. This is terrible thinking and most of the
times lead me to think my idea is horrible, when in reality I have done
nothing in terms of marketing. So yes I fully agree with start marketing the
day you start coding.

When I started [https://mattebot.co/](https://mattebot.co/) I made sure to
make marketing a top priority for products I release in the future.

~~~
iudqnolq
FYI on Android Firefox Preview social icons are behind heading. No idea if
that's true for other mobile browsers.

------
awinter-py
fascinated by the 'ideas aren't worth that much, tell everyone' argument

have been trying this and every time my splash page gets a click I get nervous
(cloudprogress.io).

certainly lights a fire under me on the prelaunch work though

------
metalrain
Somehow I read title of book like this. As developer I should market the day I
started coding. Like I started coding 17 years ago, I may know some stuff,
hire me please.

It's funny how different perspectives we have.

~~~
tmartty
I don't understand.. noone's trying to get hired here, Rob is a well known guy
in the ecosystem and I'm just a developer with my own agency.

What's your perspective?

------
werber
A lot of what is referred to as marketing at the end of the article sounds
like ux

~~~
tmartty
You mean the 'Validate your idea, build a prototype, show it to people, gather
feedback, improve it and keep going' part? That's far from UX, and also far
from marketing.. those are steps I'd take if starting a new project. BUT all
those steps should be intersected with marketing from day one.

~~~
werber
Hmm, that’s what I think ux should do, what the marketing department was doing
at my last job and why they were at war

------
melling
Marketing usually costs money.

If you’re trying to bootstrap, you probably should wait until your product is
finished? There are very few free avenues for self promotion on the Internet
for “code”, other than a blog.

~~~
TruffleLabs
Don’t wait!

From the moment you decide to pursue the idea, you have to do marketing,
advertising, and public relations.

Yes, there is a cost. That’s the reality.

~~~
o-__-o
I would not advertise until you have 1000 cold calls under your belt and a
product. You will waste money advertising an alpha product. Your 20/80
customers won’t come from an ad. Press releases are your friend, Ive lost
track of how many companies I’ve found with potential by simply watching the
news wire the comes through my investment account website/app

