Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomhoward | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't need to if you're doing something highly valuable for a specific subset of potential customers.

I don't know what it says in the book, but I'd expect the message would be similar to the YC advice, which is to start talking very early and frequently to potential and existing customers, to ensure that what you’re building is highly valuable to them.

YC partners have often said that the companies that achieve the biggest success are the ones who are the most active in talking to existing/potential customers.

They also note that the ones who spend money on paid marketing before they have a highly valuable product and organic (i.e., free) growth are the ones who fail.

View on HN

Talking to potential is customers is more about making sure you’re solving someone’s real problem, as opposed to “build it and they will come”. That should probably fall under a different category than marketing. We’re overloading the term, which could lead to confusion.

Your “advice” would fall under the “getting your first 1000 users” trope:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajayyadav/2017/05/16/how-to-get...

> "making sure you’re solving someone’s real problem"

When I studied a couple of university marketing subjects in the mid-90s, we were taught that's about the most fundamental aspect of marketing.

> “We’re overloading the term”

I think it's more likely you're reacting to a stereotype of marketing held by people outside the field, rather than what it really is according to those who do it properly.

From the author's own summary of the book:

So basically: start marketing the day you start coding.

Or, actually... before you even start coding! Validate your idea, build a prototype, show it to people, gather feedback, improve it and keep going.

Sure, this is a 10+ year old idea about finding 1000 true fans.

https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/

There’s no value in repackaging the idea into “start marketing the day you code”. It’s confusing the real intent with an ambiguous and broad term.

That's not a quote from the author of the book, that's something I wrote, just to be clear.

> That should probably fall under a different category than marketing.

I work in product marketing for a large SaaS and would absolutely consider talking to customers (potential and actual), and talking to people who talk to customers (such as sales, CS) as part of my job. It would be incredibly hard to do my job without it.

The answers to most questions in marketing come from outside the building. We’re not overloading the term - you appear to be narrowly defining the term as advertising and branding.

Market research isn’t its own category?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_research

Although you might hire specialist market research firms, market research definitely falls under the remit of the modern marketer’s job.

Market research firms will also regularly supply insights and opinions about positioning, which definitely falls under marketing.

Competitive differentiation is so fundamental to positioning that it doesn’t really make sense to treat them as siloed functions.

The term is "product validation" which isn't core marketing of course. But for that you need initial users and to get these you need limited marketing efforts early on. No rocket science :-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com