

Marketing your startup: dorks vs everyone else - matthewer

So here is the question: when you are marketing your start-up do you go after the online tech community (dorks) or go after normal people (people whose lives do not revolve around the internet.)  Maybe its both, maybe not. Suggestions, insight, comments...
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Shooter
I would recommend going for the non-geek community ("normal people") 99 times
out of 100. Basically, go for real people as customers unless you're selling a
bug-tracking app or tech news app or something else that is only pertinent to
geeks.

Geeks are less willing to pay for a product or service, because their interest
in new startups is largely a technical curiosity and/or a competitive
curiosity. The people that are on the cutting-edge of technology are also
constantly looking for the next thing, so they lose interest quickly. Non-
geeks are much more likely to pay you and to continue paying you if your
service actually helps them. An app is likely to be remarkable (in the literal
sense) for geeks if it has a unique architecture or was written in an unusual
language, etc., whereas an app can be very remarkable/viral among non-geeks as
long as it is useful.

In sum: If you want a business, go after non-geeks. If you want 15 minutes of
geek-fame, go after geeks.

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sanswork
I think it really depends on what you do. If you offer the type of
product/service that geeks are likely to recommend to their non-geek friends
and will still excite geeks target them. I fully believe a great deal of
Googles success came from exciting the geek market and using them to spread
the word to non-geeks who could tell people to Google it instead of spending
time answering a question.

Other companies either don't appeal to geeks or just aren't something a geek
is likely to recommend in which case just targeting the general population is
probably better.

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ejs
Seems it would depend on the product/service you are offering.

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brlewis
Try some of each and see who gets more excited about it.

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jlb
Why do you choose "dork" instead of "geek?"

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matthewer
my bad...was debating the two terms. It was meant to be tongue in cheek.

