>Pipedrive could have grown to 10,000 paying customers without any marketing...The main thing that got Pipedrive to first 100, 1000 and 10000 customers was having a great product.
I'm sure that it's a great product. That's usually a prerequisite for success, but hardly guarantees it. For every extremely successful product, there are hundreds of equally great products that falter - primarily for lack of luck. This kind of statement shows an extreme lack of perspective.
Remove selection bias or straight up marketing spam from authors and the willingness of many users to believe anything someone who claims they're making money says and HN would be a lot emptier. One can dream..
The short answer: luck. Yes, they have created a great product and yes they did some marketing - the same things that their competitors did. Once the prerequisite hard work has been expended, there are innumerable factors that are completely beyond anyone's control that determine which products succeed or fail.
If I could pick just one of the three - great product, luck and marketing - I'd say great product trumps luck. Because without a product all that luck can get you is a winning lottery ticket. And hustling and marketing increases the probability of "luck".
>I'd say great product trumps luck. Because without a product all that luck can get you is a winning lottery ticket.
Of course you would say that, because that's your experience. In your case, the entry fee to the lottery was creating a great product, doing marketing, and generally hustling - just like your competitors. Once you paid the entry fee though, the controlling factor was luck. You won, and your competitors lost. I am not trying to take anything away from your success, because you paid your entry fee through hard work, but as I said it shows a lack of perspective to just say "we are successful because we made a great product". Great products fail every day.
I've been on the failing side as well, both with Pipedrive marketing activities (at least 1 mentioned in the post too) and my own startup. With the latter I had "luck" in getting decent press and some influential users, but it failed because the product wasn't there. So I guess we both have a point.
I'm sure that it's a great product. That's usually a prerequisite for success, but hardly guarantees it. For every extremely successful product, there are hundreds of equally great products that falter - primarily for lack of luck. This kind of statement shows an extreme lack of perspective.