The Best Marketers Are Engineers | Hacker News Reader

The Best Marketers Are Engineers

steveblank.com

45 pointspeter12311 comments

Am I crazy, or does the subject of this post miss the point completely?

Wasn't the whole point of this article the fact that the writer WASN'T an engineer, but that he intimately learned the product he was marketing, and that was what people wanted?

I think the point here is that the good marketers are the people who can crossover from one part of the office to the next. An engineer with no social skills will do no better than a marketer with no technical knowledge-- you need both. This article happened to be about a marketer who crossed over, not the other way around.

My takeaway was that it's that it's easier for an engineer to pick up the necessary marketing skills to sell to other engineers, rather than a business person picking up the necessary engineering skills. (Assuming that these engineers already have the necessary social skills)

An engineer with no social skills will do no better than a marketer with no technical knowledge

Edward Bernays (creator of PR and creator of Freud (the product)) might be the best marketing engineer and he hated social events and large groups of people but he understood them and how to manipulate them.

Engineers understand systems. When you realize that the best marketing is by learning the natural way that humans think and act individually or in a group then you are a good marketer no matter, fumbling bumbling idiot in social situations but knower of human ways.

That's why there's a whole profession called "Marketing Engineer" and another called "Sales Engineer" both of whom earn a lot more than the normal marketing and sales people.

both of whom earn a lot more than the normal marketing and sales people

Not true. Good sales people earn a lot of money. In a lot of companies sales folks earn more than the management team.

If we were going to make a comparison, we would have to use expected or median pay. People in sales tend to have large variance on their paychecks.

Which is why I said Good sales people :-)

I've been really enjoying this series on marketing. I hate to go off-topic, but does anyone recommend his book The Four Steps to the Epiphany?

Lots of people do:

http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/09/lean-startup.ht...

http://groups.google.com/group/lean-startup-circle

and many, many more. I've probably seen 15 positive reviews of it on blogs I read.

I picked up a copy of his book on the recommendation of someone here at HN. Many of the stories on his blog are in the book also. It's definitely a worthwhile read, full of insights and examples, especially great for someone working with or creating a startup.

Yes. It helps if you are working for or plan to start a startup/early stage company. A lot, but not all, can be applied to a new product in an established company.

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