Great Application + Price != Profit
Kurt comments on a recent talk by 37signals’ David Hanemeur Hanson:
As I was watching it though, I had the same thought that I always seem to have when I hear someone from 37 Signals talk, and it came to me right when I saw the slide that said:
- Great Application
- Price
- Profit!
If only it were that easy. The thing that these guys always leave out seems to be step 1.5:
Market the hell out of your product, and get a bunch of people to use it.
That step is really, really hard.
I bet that if you asked DHH if he thought that 37 Signals would be just as successful if he hadn’t invented Rails, and without the flood of free publicity that that got them, and he answered truthfully, the answer would be “no”.
As I’ve said before: marketing isn’t an afterthought you tack on once your product is complete. 37signals have been relentless marketers for years, although you’d be hard pressed to find them mention it. And that’s the beautiful thing about well executed marketing: it’s completely transparent.
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sj added these pithy words on Apr 25 08 at 7:13 amYou’re absolutely right about 1.5 and him leaving it out. That said, I think they’re one of the better examples of people who did do 1.5 really well. Even before Rails got a ton of traction, they were really well known for their site and their ideas. They “dug their well before they were thirsty”, building a relationship with people who bought into their ideology before they released product. Jason seems to be pretty adept at selling publications on their “simple is better” idea - they’ve been written up in every major publication and have had a lot of product adoption from “non tech” types who don’t know what Rails is.
To your point though, the Rails zealots could have been the “innovators” that moved it through the product adopton curve…
Gil added these pithy words on Apr 25 08 at 7:17 amThat was actually Kurt’s point, not mine.
My point was that 37signals have been marketing to us all along. It’s such an integral part of the way they operate that it’s barely noticeable, even to them. More companies should get in the habit of thinking this way.
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