Loading...
Answers
MenuIf you have a startup that has not yet figured out its Product/ Market fit, do you think that marketing will be difficult, if not destined to fail?
This question has no further details.
Answers
Use marketing as a means to gather more data and test. Marketing is one of the most underrated and undervalued skills in startups.
Startups don't struggle with competition but getting attention. Marketing drives more data into the product, thus you can validate your theories.
Pre-product market fit marketing should drive acquisition and customer development.
Every startup needs to do some kind of marketing to get net new users to talk with / test product features with, etc.
Marketing pre-product / market fit is usually done to learn faster, not to scale the business.
So, yes - if you're running marketing hopping that it will fix lack of traction, it'll usually fail.
The engine needs to be running and well tuned if you want to pour more gas into it.
Not necessarily, if at all. I'd say "optimizing" marketing will be difficult, but marketing and acquiring users is totally doable. The problem will be retaining those users, but that's ok too.
When your in the "hunt" (ala the search for product market fit) you need prospective customers to come and test your product in order to get feedback to find out what needs to be modified/created to hence find product-market fit... right?
So, spend some money marketing to get some users, hopefully you've got pseudo-product-market fit so customers will like what you have just enough to give you feedback to make it better, then iterate, market again, and see what they say. Eventually you can optimize marketing for cost and quality.
Related Questions
-
How do I grow from a one man startup when I don't have the money to hire & don't have skills or time for investors?
Stop thinking you don't have the skills to do something. You can learn anything if you decide to, but assuming up front that you can't (forever) is dangerous. my2centsDM
-
How has Uber grown so fast?
Obviously, they do the fundamentals well. Good brand. Good experience. Good word of mouth. Good PR. Etc. Etc. But after my interview with Ryan Graves, the head of Global Operations at Uber (https://www.growthhacker.tv/ryan-graves), it became clear that they are operationally advanced and this is a huge part of their success. I'll explain. Uber isn't just a single startup, it's essentially dozens of startups rolled into one because every time they enter a new city they have to establish themselves from essentially nothing (except whatever brand equity has reached the city ahead of them). This means finding/training drivers, marketing to consumers, and building out local staff to manage operations for that city. This is where Ryan Graves comes in. He has a protocol of everything that must be done, and in what order, and by who, to ensure the best chance of success in a new city. So how has Uber grown so fast? Essentially, they figured out how to grow in one locale and were relentless about refining their launch process to recreate that initial success over and over in new cities. No plan works for every city, and they've had to adapt in many situations, but it is still a driving factor for their success.BT
-
What is the best growth hacking strategy for a travel website?
Before you spend $ or time marketing your service / website, ensure that your brand itself is quite strong. For example, if your name or domain is awkward, ambiguous, or off-putting, then every dollar and hour you spend promoting your brand will work less efficiently in your favor than if you were spending the same amount of money and time marketing something more robust and attractive.JP
-
If you had to pick the most important metric from Dave McClure's AARRR? What would it be and why?
Retention - if you build something people want/use AND come back and use often, then you can usually figure out a business model to make it work (if there's a big enough market).DM
-
What is the best sales material to use to support a B2B outbound strategy. And what should be the order of outreach? I.E email, phone call, mail?
People hate calls. People hate emails. People hate mail. Do you really want your first impression to be that of an interloper and a pusher? Then again, most recipients aren't event going to look at what you send them. What is your niche? Office managers for private family healthcare providers in Peoria? Athletics department directors for NAIA schools? Sales managers at wholesale car dealers that make over $180 million per year in gross revenue? Know your niche and define your buyer (and it better be the CIO or VP). Is your buyer female or male? Older, middle age, or younger? What about her or his college education? What does he drive? Where does he live? Where does he eat his lunch and get his coffee in the morning? What does he read? Etc. Go to your buyer. Find congregations of your buyer. Professional associations. Conferences. Meet-ups. Trade shows. Offer to do free presentations--not on your product but on best practices or trends you observe in the industry. Make your presentation about solving problems your buyers deal with every day. Write blogs or columns for media they read. Again, focus on what they need/want to read. You will have a hard time keeping enough business cards in stock and click-throughs from your byline. This is a true "targeted outreach campaign." Don't waste your money and time with anything less than this. You're going to do great. Please let me know if you'd like to talk about it more!BI
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.