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Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by onion2k on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @04:41PM (#21588858)
Marketing and sales.

As awful as that sounds to many people it just isn't enough to build an amazing product, write great code, or design something beautiful. You need to be able to get out there and tell people it exists in order to succeed. Without that ability your startup will fail. In fact, in my experience at least, far more companies fail because they couldn't reach customers than fail because they couldn't build something. Building something is the easy bit.

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by treebornfrog on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:26PM (#21589277)
100% this.

You can have the best castle, but if no-one visits, what use is it?

I've met too many programmers with great ideas and execution, but have failed with marketing/sales because they think it's all fluff. Communication is key.

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by thebokehwokeh2 on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:26PM (#21589275)
Absolutely agreed. My current job is far and away the least technically challenging/complex/interesting work I've done in my 15 year career but it's the most monetarily successful because of stellar sales and marketing and support teams.

Unless you're audience is as technical as you are, the layperson on the street will not know the difference between 2 products given numerous similarities. They NEED to be told that one product is better and just want to talk to a real person to explain how the damned thing works.

Good UX is primary. Good code is secondary. When good UX and good code fail, good human interaction is what is the kicker.

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by tyri_kai_psomi on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @04:53PM (#21588974)
> Building something is the easy bit.

Building something is certainly easy. Building something people want and works well is pretty hard. Unless you have the latter, all the sales and marketing won't do much for you unless you have an established legacy walled garden that people are forced to use.

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by jbverschoor on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:04PM (#21589078)
News flash. That’s part of marketing. Not programming.

The past decades and even now, people tend to expect programmers to do everything related to tech.

This fairytale is why so many fail.

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by rapind on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @06:04PM (#21589580)
I don't understand this claim.

Building something people want is marketing? Requirements gathering? Business analysis? Project management? Engineering? These are just subdivisions of marketing?

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by sky_rw on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @06:19PM (#21589698)
Yes, actually. Academically marketing is defined by the general marketing mix of: Product, Pricing, Place, and Promotion. Product here relates to fully understanding the end users goals. You then need to design a product that meets those goals, and a brand which communicates to your user how those goals are met.

It's common place now for people to think of 'marketing' as 'advertising'. It is a much more robust subject than that. This is driven largely by the product management role being so closely integrated to the engineering flow. As I understand it, traditionally product management was a marketing department role. You can see this more with non-software companies like food or transportation.

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by rapind on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @07:54PM (#21590405)
Interesting TIL. Definitely not how I perceive marketing though. I always saw it encompassing promotion and brand.
Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by RaceWon on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @06:24PM (#21589726)
> I don't understand this claim.

I'd say it is more accurate to characterize your points as a "marketing feasibility analysis". But this is as much my opinion based on my understanding of marketing, as it is actual "marketing of a product" per se.

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by dfcagency on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:46PM (#21589459)
I'm a marketer here. If you want some help, reply. I'm happy to grab coffee in the Bay Area and help give early direction to your startup.
Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by smithmayowa on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @06:04PM (#21589579)
Hey man, would like to pick ur brain some regarding saas sales, sadly I am not based in the valley or US for that matter, mind if I email you, quick question what is the fastest no bullshit way to validating ur saas idea and seeing if people needed it, I was thinking of driving google ad words traffic to a landing page will that be sufficient?
Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by niknikson on Thursday November 21, 2019 @01:51AM (#21591964)
Google AdWords campaign is good way to gauge market demand. Key is to identify granular high intent keywords in your market and setup your campaign to only target those keywords. If you are able to capture a decent amount of exact keyword search impression you can work backwards to get an idea of overall traffic/demand for your product. Keep in mind if you run a short campaign you will have to take into consideration seasonality - you can likely extrapolate this info by analyzing monthly search volume in AdWords keyword tool.

The other important factor is validating keyword intent. You need identify some action that indicates the likelihood of a user paying for your service. If you can measure that and combine this data with search volume, you will be in a good position to assess your products feasibility.

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by FindMySocks on Thursday November 21, 2019 @06:50AM (#21593223)
I've just run a nice unsuccessful Adwords campaign, and I think my lack of knowledge on how to correctly use Adwords, alongside Analytics is where I'm going wrong. Any chance you know of some decent resources / quick-start guides to help understand Adwords and how to use it?
Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by dfcagency on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @07:30PM (#21590218)
Happy to help.

bobbybottleservice (at) me (dot) com

(it's a throwaway alias - don't make a judgement on the name.)

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by ereyes01 on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @07:10PM (#21590064)
My cofounder is in the Bay area, and we're looking for help in this area. How do we get in touch with you?
Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by dfcagency on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @07:30PM (#21590213)
bobbybottleservice (at) me (dot) com

(it's a throwaway alias - don't make a judgement on the name.)

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by richardchan81 on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @07:10PM (#21590067)
Hey, I’m based in the Bay and would really like to pick your brain, let me know your fave joint for coffee.
Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by dfcagency on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @07:30PM (#21590215)
bobbybottleservice (at) me (dot) com

(it's a throwaway alias - don't make a judgement on the name.)

Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by tootie on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @06:53PM (#21589946)
I'd also say that while there's a basket of broadly applicable skills, there's also a world of difference between high-touch sales like 7-figure services contracts vs low-touch mass market like driving 100k anonymous visitors to your site. And everything in between.
Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by ultrasounder on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @06:19PM (#21589692)
I am hearing that a fledgling startup needs to "Sell First" and then build it- They Will come. Any ideas on how I should balance the concept of the idea and the actual MVP that I would market to my early adopter customers? Thanks in advance for any insights.
Re:What skills are most crucial for running small internet c... by madiathomas on Thursday November 21, 2019 @10:03AM (#21594712)
I always try to find at least one client who has a problem I want to solve and ask them to fund development of version 1. If no-one is ready to pay for development of version 1, it is a sign that I don't have a market and shouldn't waste time developing. So far, I have developed two profitable products using this strategy. Even if it doesn't work, at least you were paid for your efforts.