Re:Why Startups Need to Focus on Sales, Not Marketing
by gk1 on Tuesday June 03, 2014 @04:53PM
(#7842661)
(Another marketer here.)
From my experience, the HN crowd knows better. The author is just painting this a black-and-white issue (either you're doing completely oblivious and vague marketing, or you're doing nitty-gritty hardcore sales!). Of course, this doesn't at all reflect what companies are actually doing.
If the gist of the article is "speak more with your users," then I strongly agree with that. If it's "marketing is useless for startups," well that's simply wrong.
Re:Why Startups Need to Focus on Sales, Not Marketing
by hkmurakami on Tuesday June 03, 2014 @05:55PM
(#7842969)
The thing is that all of us have different interpretations of what Sales and Marketing represent. Thus I look past those terms and look at the activity she describes instead.
When I look at what she describes, I feel that it is simply a repackaged form of customer development. But for a WSJ audience, I understand the need to frame it in familiar terms.
My background is in marketing, and I'm confused by this parody of a marketer who doesn't know how to gather and apply user feedback to the product and site.