Which takes longer: building a product or building marketing?
Picture this: you spend months - if not years - building your product. You get it to a state you’re (kind of) happy with, and then - and only then - you explore marketing.
In the time it’s taken you to develop your product, learn how to code, hire a developer, get frustrated with the version that was built, get even more frustrated when you learn you can’t use an API or get it listed on the App store - you could have also been learning how to monetise what you’re building.
The scary reality is, it can take just as long - if not longer - to learn who your ideal customer is, how to keep them using your product, how to find them, and how to automate it into a startup marketing plan.
It’s like marketing and distribution is seen as a nice to have.
Something that you can turn on and off.
Appoint an agency, buy some ads - get instant results, right?
Yet, here’s the thing, irrespective of whether you’re going down the investment route or you’re a bootstrapper, both need a plan for distribution.
Investors won’t just look at your product, they’ll look at your route to market. They’ll be interested in what you’ve built and how you can get it in the hands of ready buyers.
If you’re going down the bootstrap route, usually you’ll supplement it with services to “pay” for the marketing. Either way, you need paying customers asap.
A few mistakes you could be making when it comes to marketing:
You think marketing is advertising.
You think people need to see a finished product to sign up and pay to use it.
You think there’s a medal for getting 100 customers… without spending any money on marketing (!)
The thing is, marketing evolves over the lifecycle of a product.
Marketing’s role changes over the maturity of your product
In the early days, marketing is all about validation, go-to-market and understanding which activities to prioritise to land those proof of concept customers or early pilots.
In the traction stage, it’s about understanding messaging, what your offering need to do to retain people.
And when we get to the magical creature stage of product market fit, only then can you really turn on the lead generation tap. And it’s this stage where things like advertising thrive.
Don’t worry; it’s not just your business. It takes time to see results.
It took Duolingo 1 year to reach product market fit.
It took airBnB 2 years.
It took Roblox 10 years.
These are just a few examples from Lenny’s article on reaching product market fit.
These organisations understood that their product didn’t need to be perfect. They needed to find customers who are prepared to pay for it in the state that it’s in.
And they achieved this by investing in parallel paths: distribution (marketing) and product.
Why parallel paths matter
Successful b2b founders will tell you this not so big secret: build distribution at the same time as your product.
Marketing, when you’re launching a new product, is all about distribution. And it takes time to see results because 1) humans are complex 2) channels are changing. (cough, E£ln M£sk).
I did a little research with startup founders and those who I’ve presented to on startup accelerators.
I asked a number of founders how long it took to get their first paying customers:
Founders with a tech product, on average, it was 2 years.
Founders with a service, it was almost instantly.
Founders with the tech product or tech-enabled service, it was 1 year.
Let’s be real. We may not have the luxury or run rate to wait for results for this long, so it makes you wonder why are founders still leaving this part to the last minute?
We’ve got the stats to prove the case for investing in it earlier.
Quiz time: the questions to understand if you’re okay to focus just on building product
Q. Do you have an idea of your ideal customer you’re solving a problem for?
Q. Do you know how much they are willing to pay to solve the problem?
Q. How much are they currently paying to solve the problem?
Q. How are they currently solving the problem… and is this competitor in the same category as you?
Q. How do they expect to buy? Off the shelf, via a subscription or via a human guiding them through the process?
Q. How many customers do you have who’ve signed either a letter of intent or signed up for a paid for pilot?
Q. Look at your plans for marketing - whoever is responsible, do they have a background in customer interviews?
Q. What are the three features your product needs to get a potential customer to switch from their current solution?
Q. Where’s the info to evidence this? And how old is it?
Q. Do you have a 6 month plan for your website?
Q. Do you have a 6 month plan for your onboarding comms?
Q. Do you have a 6 month plan for your customer acquisition?
Q. Do you know the metrics you need to focus on to get that initial awareness?
If you can’t answer 90% of these, you should absolutely be investing in the validation and marketing of your product. Otherwise you are going to be experiencing a distribution issue in about, 12 months.
In summary
Your product doesn’t need to be perfect.
You just need paying customers who are willing to use it as-is. That validation—those early adopters—can shape both your product and your go-to-market strategy. It’s not a case of one or the other.
If it helps, don’t call it “marketing.” Call it “customer discovery” or “distribution-building” or whatever makes you feel less allergic to the idea. But start it now.
Want to understand what you should be focusing and why? Check out my b2b marketing consultancy services.
