Avoiding Startup Tarpits
It seems I am one of those in the tarpit.<p>I think the problem for us engineering types is that there is so much bullshit around marketing, that it&#x27;s offputting to us. That&#x27;s the case for me at least. If I spend time&#x2F;money on a feature, I <i>know</i> how long it will take, how much it will cost and when it will be ready. Compared to this, marketing seems like burning money with voodoo rituals.<p>It doesn&#x27;t help that marketing efforts are only meaningfully measurable on a larger scale. If you&#x27;re bootstrapping something yourself, you don&#x27;t <i>have</i> 12k to spend on marketing this month. You have $300. It&#x27;s easy to burn that $300 on adwords or facebook ads and get zero signups, with no meaningful data whatsoever.<p>The usual advice goes: hire a marketing expert. But how do I hire a marketing expert that a) isn&#x27;t full of it, b) will even listen to me if my current budgets are in the hundreds of dollars?<p>I think the article is right on point, but I wish it pointed me to a way to deal with the marketing problem.