Up and to the Right

Most startups unrealistically hope to hire idealized coding or UI "ninjas" that they think will make their wildest dreams come true.

Look at the “Jobs” page of any startup and you’ll see a bunch of postings for “Ruby Ninja,” “AJAX Samurai” and “UI Wizard, Level 43.” Of course–I jest–but only a little. These names are more than just funny epithets. These aspirational descriptions of powers we normally only assign to superheroes express the misguided hopes that one or two engineers/artists exist somewhere in the world that will magically turn a given startup into the next Facebook. Unfortunately, the last thing most startups need is another engineer. What they really need is a marketer.

But aren’t marketers only good once you’ve completed building your product and then need to sell, monetize or otherwise hock it to unsuspecting suckers? Aren’t marketing people expensive luxuries only good for creating Super Bowl ads?

No! That’s where many founders and engineers have it bass-ackwards. When your startup is two guys and a dog, yes, your first few hires will likely be engineers who can create a convincing proof of concept (alpha, beta, charlie, tango, whatever) to get you to the next milestone. However, after that most startups just continue to pile on engineers to build more and features (and the frontend and backend to support them). But that’s when you need to hire marketing (especially when the founder(s) don’t have a formal marketing background).

If you don’t have a crystal clear idea of who your customers are and what benefits of your product they’ll most value, you are 99.999% sure wasting your engineering resources on the wrong problems. And this is not simple stuff–but most founders I speak with say something like, “Yeah, I know perfectly well who our target customer is and what their needs are.” Big mistake. In general, before you say another word, I know you’re wrong. Say that to me and you’d better be prepared to fight (like a ninja) because I’ll slice you and dice you until you cry, make you take your statement back and admit you were the second gunman on the grassy knoll.

While some founders are insanely perceptive marketers who need no additional help, unless your name is Steve Jobs you are probably prone to overestimate yourself in this department much more relative to, say, engineering. Why? Because marketing is often thought of as less of a hard skill than say Python or PHP coding, many engineering-types assume it is 100% intuitive, fluffy (nonsense?) and can’t be thaaaat hard. However, if we analyze why most startups fail, rarely do we say “They didn’t have enough engineering.” (Think Veoh.) In my humble opinion, the single greatest cause of startup failure is not understanding the customer’s needs, EVEN THOUGH THE FOUNDERS THINK THEY DO. There, I said it.

Here are a few key lessons:

1. Marketing is not easy
2. Marketing is not about “selling”
3. Marketing does NOT begin when it comes time to sell. Real marketing begins in understanding who the customers are, the needs of those customers, how any given solution will benefit those customers and how to best communicate to those customers. Good marketers are part and parcel of the product creation cycle from as early as possible.

Capiche? So the next time you’re thinking of hiring your next “AJAX, PERL, Ruby Nun-Chucking, Kung-Fu Master Shaolin Guru Attack Wizard”, stop and ask yourself “Would I be better off hiring a marketer who can help me understand whether I am building the right features?” If you feel like you need to hire a superhero for an engineer, maybe its because you’re too dependent on “features” as opposed to customer benefits. Remember, the best engineered products don’t win; the best customer experience/value does.