As a society we need to find a way to stop rewarding slyness and trickery (aka marketing)
What's described above really doesn't fit into this view, but is definitely how I've seen people "play the game". ChatGPT-generated fluff, copied content, and the same tips & tricks, inspirational stories, etc. you see repurposed all the time on different platforms - especially LinkedIn.
I hope marketing can be good and value-adding but, the way it's going right now, we're due for a change.
What if you replaced the word marketing with attention?
Would you rather live of soup kitchens than have the attention of your ideal customers?
Some reading:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_end_justifies_the_mean...
https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_the-business-ethics-work...
Then you would be making a different argument. Marketing and attention are not the same thing: the former is one means to the latter. Marketing is grabbing attention by force, which could be considered unethical; attention by itself can be consensual and organic.
It’s funny, but when you post an obvious click bait to Reddit/hn everybody is like “this is clickbait, the author is trying to sell you his coaching”, etc.
But then, when you say you don’t want to participate in algorithm hunger games, everyone is like “no, you won’t succeed. You need to shove your products down the throat if your readers”. :puke:
The blog post was authentic with a simple purpose: (1) I like to write, and (2) I believed writing is beneficial to everyone. I share all my blog posts here, none of them performed as well as this one (check my profile if you want).
Seeing the success and the traffic this post generated, I crafted a quick form to offer FREE coaching session. Free as Linux free. I gave 2.5 hours of my time for free. In exchange, I asked my mentees for testimonials. A fair transaction I guess. It’s a great way to build my brand.
I put a small, non intrusive banner on my blog, with a message of free coaching session (the same banner now promotes my book). It’s not a pop up that jumps when you scroll to the bottom, it’s not a JavaScript scripts that pops up when you close the tab. It’s a ~30px, non sticky bar at the top, the goes away with a little scroll.
Top comment on HN? My post is cringy and I’m yet another “coaching bro” that promotes his stuff. :shrug:
Building an audience and selling a product is in large part about rejection. You will get tons of comments like that. Haters are going to hate, no matter what you do
Yes, it hurts, but just keep going. If the top comment represented everyone’s sentiment, your post wouldn’t have gotten 200+ upvotes (congrats by the way, not an easy feat)
I just point out the absurdity of this gladiator games that everyone seems to enjoy too much.
I don’t get offended by negative comments, as long as they are constructive, I see them as bliss.
It’s an endless game. I don’t complain, I just point out the absurdity of this gladiator games that everyone enjoys.
If anything, the juvenile thing to do is to look at reality the way it is and deny it because it doesn’t fit our personal world view
I get it, we’d love a world in which we could just do our best work and everyone could see it and recognize it
But reality is that people are thinking about themselves and are not searching for what we are building. How would they ever find out about what we do if we are not telling them?
You have a serious misunderstanding of what marketing is if you think it’s slyness and trickery
Of course I’m not going to convince you otherwise, but I think it might help you to actually do research, read a marketing book and talk to people in marketing to understand what it really is
You mention deny reality. Reality is formed by our actions. Adherence to such systems and the playing of juvenile games ensures their perpetuation. I shall not contribute to what I think is the wrong way to go.
And yes, marketing is slyness and trickery. 95% of marketing is A/B ad and layout testing. Or shall we consider the great, historical marketing successes such as promoting cigarettes as healthy, or breakfast cereal ?
There isn’t a single organization that doesn’t do marketing one way or another (just putting a sign outside a restaurant is marketing, maybe you also consider that to be tricking people and playing games?)
Pretty sure that without marketing you would either not have a job or not get paid
So you are actually fine with marketing making you money, just as long as you are not the one doing it. Sounds like denying reality
Btw, marketing != advertising, and 95% of people don’t even have the time, budget or large enough audience to do any kind of A/B testing
You obviously cannot see the distinction, so why bother replying ?
Pretty sure that without marketing you would either not have a job or not get paid
Sitting there, figuring out the perfect number of posts to share at the perfect time. I don’t want to do that.
I post a lot. On all platforms. But I don’t want to play games. Maybe I’m stupid, but I believe there is more than one way to succeed.
You don’t have to play stupid marketing games, but you do need to have a website where you explain what your product does and you need at least a little traffic. That means you have to create some kind of marketing content that is actually valuable to people because it helps them better understand the problem your software solves.
To be clear, doing almost zero marketing is clearly suboptimal if you want to grow fast, but presumably you know this. Just don’t believe people who tell you that you have to spam and create clickbait content in order to survive.
But that’s the problem. I haven’t used any of Tony’s products, but it’s hard to believe that each and one of them—is outstanding.
And this is the missing part. I see a lot of people on twitter, who build all kind of products. None of them are the next Facebook, and yet some of them are able to generate pretty nice MRR. But I rarely see people talking about how they promote their products.
It’s always one of two: (1) people use click bait and “beating the algorithm” tactics, or (2) they come up with an explanation of their success, after they already succeeded (I.e. I posted everyday, and based on survivorship bias I came to a conclusion that you need to post X time a day, interact with Y people, and your first comment should be a link to your product).
No disrespect to Tony, I liked his post, but he had one paragraph dedicated to twitter, inside a 12 minute read about his technical projects.
And this is essence of my original comment.
The main take away you should have is that you need to be consistent, have a system and give your audience what _they_ want
Posting a lot about whatever topic you want to talk about whenever you want to talk about it will probably not work, especially if you are only talking about your product
People don’t care about you or your product, they care about themselves and their problems
Marketing is work, just like any other, it’s not a fun past time that you do on the side after you spent most of your day working on the product
And yes, people do get lucky, but the most successful people at building a personal brand are consistent in building an audience to try to increase their “luck surface”
I just feel that “giving the people what they want”, is directly translated to asking stupid questions such as “do you read fantasy or sci-fi?” Or posting new-age motivational bullshit quotes.
I don’t do that. I share my journey, and my insights from it. I share my experience. My up and down moments. And it between, promoting my products.
I know that marketing is work, and it’s a hard work. And I respect clever marketing. But like with anything else, it’s been reduced to simple and idiotic steps such as shoving your products down the throat of your users.
Here is a good example of a lame cold outreach https://x.com/skwee357/status/1705209267127558265?s=46
He sent me an email few weeks ago. I told him that my post is about OOP and not business name generator, and I’m not looking for collaboration. Few weeks later, I get the SAME email. Word by word.
I don’t want to be like this guy.
None of the suggestions here were remotely similar to doing that.
It seems to me your conflating things and assuming that anything you don't do is being like this guy. There are probably things you're not doing that are clever and you might want to do.
If your product is good, solves a pain people have, and you really care about solving it, maybe consider reviewing your mindset around the things you currently don't do, if they would potentially help you solve this problem for more people.
I don’t think there are problems left to solve. And the ones that are left, are not solved by people who promote themselves in twitter.
I spoke with a friend today, he told me he used to be subscribed to ProductHunt daily newsletter. He unsubscribe recently, because he found out that it’s all the same. It’s yet another todo app, project management app, or whatever.
So yeah, in an essence, marketing is shouting to the void until you fall on someone who needs a todo list RIGHT NOW. And you just happened to me there at the right time and the right place.
I see something totally different. I frequently discover new things that help me and make some part of my life better, easier, anything positive. And I see many people around me experiencing the same.
For that reason, I don't see the world you see.
I might be wrong. You might be wrong. Maybe both of us are partly wrong. Anyways, this mindset has helped me further in life and accomplish things I previously found impossible. For now, I'll stick to it.
Best for you, I trust we both will find a path that makes us happy.
Interesting comments and perspective.
A few decades ago I was faced with the challenge of selling a product I designed. I sold the way engineers do, which is to say I sucked at it. That launched me into an effort to learn. And, with friends and mentors, I did. I sold millions of dollars in products in the years that followed.
Selling is art and science. If you think of it as an engineer, you are not going to succeed. If you think it is "dirty" or "manipulative", stop trying to be an entrepreneur and go find a job. You will fail.
To be clear, there is such a thing as vomit-inducing sales and marketing schemes. Thankfully, that's the exception rather than the rule. Why? Because nobody wants to be sold this way.
Here's what is important to understand in selling: You cannot force anyone to buy anything.
Say you have a hotel. You can have beautiful gardens. Incredible rooms. Superior service. Great offers, activities and pricing.
And yet, you cannot force someone to take a vacation (or where to go). You just cannot.
What can you do then?
Well, start from the perspective that nobody knows you exist. Which means that you are three standard deviations away from anyone --when they are ready to make the decision-- choosing to book a room at your hotel. You do not exist.
Realizing this, if you believe in your product, you should want to make people far and wide aware of it. You want them to know you exist. You want them to know about your hotel when they are ready to take a vacation.
If the people you want as customers life within a small radius from your hotel, you might be able to afford sending everyone a beautiful brochure once a year and maybe even inviting them to a brunch event every so often. That's great.
Anything much beyond that requires a different approach. Still, if your audience is small and well defined it might be easier.
Once you start getting much beyond that, it can become exponentially more difficult. The internet, like it or not, has created a situation where you have to rise above a certain threshold for you to even as much as exist in the minds of potential customers. Which means there's a way to do it and there are many ways to waste your time and money while doing nothing but remain below the visibility threshold.
You don't have to like it.
You do have to understand that there's a way to do it in order to succeed and a way to die trying.
If you are not willing to understand the realities of selling today, again, with respect, find a job.
If I were to drop you in the ocean five km from shore with nothing but your clothes, your survival depends on several things:
- Accepting your reality
- Wanting to survive
- Knowing how to swim with minimal effort in open water
- Start swimming
Accepting your reality means that you have to understand you are not going to succeed at selling unless you stop being judgmental about how selling has to be done today. That doesn't mean becoming a scam artist. Reputable companies like Ford and Hewlett Packard have to adapt their sales strategy to market realities. Only then can you have a plan that will lead to survival.
Wanting to survive should be obvious. Entrepreneurship is hard. If you are going to reject sales and marketing for ideological reasons that are not in alignment with reality, go find a job. You won't survive.
Knowing how to swim. Most people would drown if they were dropped into the ocean far from shore. This is true even if they know how to swim in a swimming pool. If you are going to survive in that environment, the day I drop you into the ocean should not be the first time you experience it. You need to train. And fail. And train some more. And learn how to swim in open water. As someone who learned to swim long distance in open water, I can tell you it is very different from messing around in a swimming pool.
Finally, start swimming. If you want to sell your product, you have to start. And you can't invent a new way to sell just because you don't know how or don't like how selling is done today. Don't invent a new open water swim stroke when you are 5 km from shore. You will not survive the experience.
In short, I think you have a decision to make. If you want to be an entrepreneur, get with the program. Or not, and just find a job.
Sorry for the tough love. I hate seeing people waste their time.
I never said I’m against marketing or sales. At my current stage, after building two products with the “build it and they will come” mentality, I think I understand the importance of marketing and branding way better than many other engineers.
The essence of my original comment, was pointing out the fact that from entire pose of the OP, only 1-2 paragraphs were dedicated to marketing, mainly with vague statements such as “I started to post on twitter, sometimes also jokes”.
On top of all that, marketing today is seen as beating the algorithm. And the algorithm changes every Thursday. So last week people were posting questions, today they are posting motivational quotes.
I don’t have the mental capacity, and desire, to participate in such games. I have moral principles, and I believe there is more than one way to achieve my goals. And the way I chose, might be harder and longer, but more aligned with what I want.
I can understand and respect that. You just need to be clear on that a successful approach likely has to be within on standard deviation from the norm for the era in order to be successful. There are exceptions, of course. However, those typically involve very unique products.
There was an era when selling via catalogs by mail was the way to do it. Heck, even door-to-door selling of encyclopedias and vacuum cleaners was a thing. Today, that approach is at least three SD's away from the norm. In other words, it would be difficult, expensive and likely pointless.
You've put a lot of work into engineering your product. Don't waste that effort by jumping into the ocean while also trying to invent a new way to swim. Get your business solidly off the ground. You can then decide what you want from a frame of reference that includes experience and a bit of financial freedom to explore interesting options.
Another way of saying: Don't waste time. Get results. That's how you buy time and freedom to make other choices.
Alright. Let's imagine I'm already in the boat 5km from shore, and I have one day left before I'm dropped into the ocean. What should I read, watch or listen to in order to catch up on today's approach to selling, do you have some recommendations?
It really depends on where you are in this journey.
Seth Godin
Permission marketing
Tribes: We need you to lead us
All marketers are liars
This is marketing
Etc.
Ries & Trout
Positioning: The battle for your mind
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
Etc.
Scientific Advertising - Claude Hopkins
https://www.foundingsales.com/
The Little Red Book of Selling - Gitomer
Perhaps others can suggest books or courses/videos on best practices for online marketing and optimization that are more up to date.
I'll warn you that at some point in my journey I hated the fact that I had more business books by my bed than engineering books. It was frustrating until I reached what I call "cruise altitude" and had enough capabilities and understanding to do well.
I know I drowned a couple of times before accepting reality, and I still struggle with it
For LinkedIn, ideally you should be posting at least 5 times a week, reposting your best performing content, re-phrasing or straight up copying viral content, and adding as many people to your contacts as possible every day (there’s a weekly limit, and there’s also a 20k total limit, so you also need to figure out what type of contacts you want to be adding, the more focus, the better your content will perform). Additionally, on LinkedIn, commenting and liking posts related to your audience can go a long way
Definitely use ChatGPT for drafts and to help you iterate, but don’t just post whatever it gives you on the first try. Also lean heavily on scheduling tools
It takes a couple of months to get going, but if you can keep a consistent pace, you will definitely figure it out
Follow (on LinkedIn) the creators of https://www.shieldapp.ai/ their whole thing is helping people build their personal brands on that platform
Finally, make sure to build a newsletter and own your list, that’s one of the biggest moats you can build