Ask HN: How do you improve at marketing when you have a developers head?

by calltrakon 12/19/2022, 7:34 PMwith 4 comments

I am pretty good at development and I have built several micro saas and such in the past. I do however suck big time at marketing.

I work full time in a fortune 500 company to pay the bills, but my passion is to launch an independent software / service company.

Any pointers and tips from developers out there who are also successful at marketing?

What is the secret?

I am trying to get traction now for my Link In Bio tool https://Bigger.Bio and could do with some guidance.

Cheers!

by helph67on 12/19/2022, 9:12 PM

Never forget Pareto! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle You will find it applies to all facets of life, including marketing.

by PaulHouleon 12/19/2022, 7:45 PM

I'd say marketing is where people who want to get rich doing little work go to fail.

Back when I was in college I was the publicity director for the college radio station which had a reputation for putting on poorly attended paper. I made at least 10 poster designs and hit the (small) campus with at least 500 photocopies. After doing this a few times a year for a year we had big crowds showing up every time.

If I'd tried to farm this work out to somebody else they would probably make 1 poster design and put up 15 posters and figure that was enough work and it just isn't.

Any kind of marketing is like that, it takes a lot more effort than most people think is reasonable, but it can very much pay off.