HACKER Q&A
📣 Vagantem

Which were some of your biggest marketing challenges as a startup?


I’m all about ‘Making products users love’ - product market fit should be found before turning on your advertising. But I’ve also learnt the importance of clear communication in a professional manner, both to potential customers and investors. Without marketing experience, we've been struggling to develop a clear brand - lacking the budget to hire an expensive marketing agency.

What was/are some of your biggest communication challenges and how did you solve them?

  👤 crmd Accepted Answer ✓
The transition from 100% product marketing (how does it work, how is it better than competitive technology), to a blend of Customer storytelling (what are customers doing with the technology, how is it transforming their businesses and helping them delight their customers), Corporate branding (who we are, our vision for the future of our industry), and straight product marketing, with coherent messaging across PR, social, industry analysts, financial analysts, etc.

It was a brutal transition, because as a company run by engineers, there was a belief that anything beyond data sheet speeds-and-feeds was harmful bullshit. But as we figured this out, revenue growth exploded and we started to be recognized as a new “leader” in the industry, so the skeptics calmed down.

From what I see, all engineer-led startups without marketing people seem to start with product marketing, then evolve into more balanced strategies as they mature. In retrospect, we call this period of our company “marketing puberty”.

👤 unlinked_dll
I think the first lesson everyone learns is that marketing is less about knowing your product than knowing your customer. You have to understand what their problems are to come up with your value prop for them.

It’s also why I think a lot of people’s bootstrapped plays fall flat. If you don’t have some support already to help guide your tech to a market, you’re never going to get anywhere. The successes I’ve seen come from people who transition from being a customer with a problem that isn’t being solved to a salesperson with the solution.

Also if you do B2B, marketing to people without purchasing approval is a great way to light money on fire.

👤 cm2012
Forget about building a brand. An early stage startup is going to change a lot. Just work on getting customers.

At first, do things that don't scale to hustle and grow: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

When you have some funding and have found product market fit, then you can use scalable channels like Facebook ads. Here's my guide on that (for B2B, but it's broadly applicable): https://medium.com/rightpercent/guide-to-scaling-a-b2b-compa...

Investors care a lot more about how many customers/users you have than about how slick your pitch is.

👤 ConuntlCooled
Customer acquisition strategy - not knowing anything about social media ads