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Ask HN: I'm sick of watching junk software outsell mine.

16 points by fbliss ↗ HN
How did you overcome the engineer mindset to get your marketing/branding together early on for your product? I'm sick of sitting around watching crappy, expensive tools outsell my work that I know is better, but I have no budget at the moment to invest in marketing/site/sales team. Another one or two sales would float a true effort for a month or two, but I'm not there yet. Help!

BACKGROUND: I'm a very ambitious engineer, I'm confident in what I can do with a little push in the right direction, and I have this toolset that I just got to a "MVP" stage (and was paid decently for) - my client is doing everything they can to help me resell this to others because they are that happy with it and want me to stop struggling as a developer.

I just want some good, solid advice from successful engineers who had to cross over to marketing as well. Thanks!

34 comments

[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 83.5 ms ] thread
benologist
Talk to people you think would be your ideal user. Worst case scenario they say no.
fbliss
Thanks for weighing in, Ben.

I built it for the ideal user, I have a second one that is a luke-warm lead in the pipeline but currently getting screwed by a vendor who shall remain nameless. The problem is, these sub-par vendors have been around and have strong marketing, I have no marketing, and we both know marketing is what gets people's attention first.

I actually have one system integrator for the product this connects to interested, and I'd love to get more of them on board with it and selling it to their customers as well.

benologist
Waiting for this silver bullet you call "marketing" to which attribute all success will kill your idea before it can become a business. It's a defeatist attitude.

Proactively looking for and contacting possible customers and building a feedback cycle and improving your product and how you pitch it will give you a chance to turn it into a business or company or whatever your ambitions are.

fbliss
Agreed, my attitude did smack of defeat.

My plan however is to get on some focused groups, for example, LinkedIn SAP groups and try to find some system integrators to talk to there.

PeterisP
I'm not sure that 'marketing' means what you think it means.

Your problem description is vague but it sounds like you're saying in this comment that you are looking at evidence that in this market you either need to get a strong salesperson or be a strong salesperson, but currently aren't making either of those happen.

fbliss
I'm not quite sure why you're skeptical on my understanding of marketing. Before I worked for myself, I worked for marketing firms, I'm not concerned that there is some base confusion there, I'm just saying

a) I don't have a working budget for design work, branding, or sales staff

b) Some folks around here have been there before too, and found a way over the bootstrapping hump, I'm curious how.

My question is poorly-worded. It was written at a moment when I was frustrated, but I was hoping for a good story from someone about how they got past the stage where you don't have the capital to commit to scaling the business up but you have good tools ready.

PeterisP
If the market is such as it is, then I'd say that the bootstrapping way is to become the sales staff yourself (as everything, it can be learned/improved), the growth way is to get outside funding for sales staff, and there likely isn't a third way.

And the marketing question was because it looked like that you say that the marketing part actually is okay, the product and message fits the market, but your direct sales activities (i.e., the actual closing the deals/"make them sign on the dotted line finally" activity which is probably the only part of customer relations that's not usually called marketing) are lagging.

fbliss
I see, thanks for clarifying. My direct sales activities haven't ramped up yet for this product. I've been working with my client who has told me endless stories of the vendors who charge ridiculous money for really poor results. I'm frustrated in general with companies who do great not because of quality products, but because of sales & marketing.
southflorida
im no engineer but from a marketers stand point you may want to team up with someone that evangelizes your product and is willing to push it themselves... also if you are willing to pay a finders fee or commission on the sell there are a ton of marketers that have an existing list to sell to, whether it be webmasters, business owners or tech people in general. depending what it is you may be able to find some cheap platforms to run ads on, again, a marketer would point you in the right direction if you are willing to share the profits, even if it is a single digit percent. good luck!
kkowalczyk
You can do marketing and sales yourself.

In fact, since you can't afford to pay anyone to do it for you, you have to do marketing yourself.

Writing a decent product website isn't that hard.

For motivation, start by reading http://successfulsoftware.net/2013/10/16/marketing-hacking-t...

Then learn the basics of marketing (it's not rocket science) and apply the things you learn in practice.

swalsh
I think the first task is to tell people about your product... why didn't you post your product?
fbliss
The product is nearly greek to people except those who are

a) System Integrators (SAP BusinessOne and other possible systems)

b) E-commerce professionals

It's not an end-user thing, its not vertical market really either.

jacobquick
I know this will be a huge surprise to you but there might be people here who do more than glue stuff together with ruby for a living.
fbliss
That got an audible laugh, thanks :D
petervandijck
Notice that how, after being explicitly asked about your product, you still won't even mention what it is? Give that some thought.
palidanx
Agreed on this point. Although I do Ruby now, I did e-commerce for many years and could provide a sounding board.
fbliss
Couldn't see the forest for the trees for a moment.

It is an E-commerce solution for SAP Business One clients. Like SAP, each client's needs are base toolset + customization work. It is a vast step forward over the current solutions available. We've enabled the systems to work together and greatly reduce the order fulfillment cycle while leveraging the SAP B1 tools.

More Detail:

The next steps are to add a CRM module (original client is funding this work) so that their CSR staff can avoid using any of the POS system SAP comes with, which is pretty terrible from the interface perspective and takes a long time to process orders. The CSRs prefer to run through checkout with phone orders due to these improvements. The client is a 5-10-mil/year client, and we will have replaced their in-house order intake process entirely by leveraging the web tools. Phase 2 also included broker/outside sales staff order processing tools.

petervandijck
Great. Do you have a website that showcases your product and gets you new clients?
fbliss
Not yet. I have a name picked out, but I haven't had the ability to hire the creative talent to start working on a decent identity for it, and that's not where my time is best spent right now. The plan is to sell another and then put aside some of that for the branding and website.

The first working version was just wrapped and went live in the past couple of weeks, to clarify the timeline - we've just begun, but this is something I could turn around and sell, I just need to start spreading the word.

petervandijck
You don't need an "identity" etc. You just need a landing page to capture emails of potential clients. Buy a landing page template, or throw one together. Shouldn't take more than a few hours.

Ping me if you need some help :)

fbliss
Thanks Peter! You're right, I really have nothing to lose to risk a few hours making a landing page.

Thanks!

ajiang
Two things you need at the beginning of starting a business: the ability to have a product/service and the ability to sell. The better your product, the less skilled you need to be at selling and vice versa. If you're doing it alone, don't underestimate the effort and skill needed to market and sell a product -- it is extremely challenging and is a big commitment either in terms of time and/or resources. You've made it easier on yourself by making the better product, but sales (especially B2B products) will never magically appear even with a superior product.

Don't view your competitors as people peddling 'crappy tools' or 'junk', view them as expert sellers, business people. Learn from them, figure out what channels they're using to sell. Are they reaching out to CTOs via LinkedIn? Are they calling directly? Are they doing targeted ads in the right publications? Pursue those routes and get your numbers up - at the end of the day, sales is very much a numbers game. Reach out to 100, speak with 10, sell to 3.

Similarly to how often Business guys underestimate the difficulty in the work of the Technical guys, it's really important to have respect for how truly challenging the marketing and selling is.

EDIT: I know OP is asking for specific steps he/she can take, but my view is that the first step is to have the right perspective on the problem and have a healthy appreciation for the competition.

fbliss
Thanks for the Input! You're right, I should be clear - I don't think these competitors suck at all, I envy their marketing and sales. I've spent time in sales myself. I just lack the resources to do it and continue my normal daily responsibilities to my clients, so I was looking for some anecdotal advice on how to get over that hump in any way possible.

Thanks for your response, very thought-provoking.

teni
Your comment just puts things in the right perspective. Once I came up with a solution that I was pitching to some folks. It was clearly better than what they had, BUT they didn't touch it. Lesson learned: Good product in the lab != Good product in market
fbliss
That's true, but don't forget, in the context of the product that I'm working on right now - it was built at the request of a client, and their system integrator saw the results and was seriously impressed, enough to suggest we try to resell it and offered to help through referrals, though I'd much rather have him on board in a more formal capacity to reach out to other integrators he knows (he's got a good-paying gig and has no reason to move on quite yet from it)
PeterisP
If the target customer group needs sales staff (such as B2B solutions for decent size companies), then you will need direct boots-on-ground sales staff anyway - it's not even a matter of competition, it's table stakes to be able to participate.

If it's B2C / mass market B2B then sure, a website can do half of the job; but there are huge markets where even they really like your product and they call you, then 0 sales will be made unless you get a sales rep in their office.

fbliss
Absolutely. That's the dilemma right now. The way I see it, the solution is:

1) Sell 2+ or more of the toolset to get some working capital

2) Promptly hire inside sales on 1099 to get out there and get the business with base salary. I've been assured the time & effort to find someone with commission-only offers is futile.

jefflinwood
You need to leverage "the channel".

Basically, from what you described of your software (E-commerce for SAP ONE) - it's not out of the box software.

You'll need someone to do integration, training, support, sales, etc.

You can either be a direct seller, and do all of those things inside your company, or partner with consulting companies/agencies/system integrators that will resell your software, and then add services and support contracts on top.

Don't try to sell directly to customers - you can't afford to reach them, and you can't afford to be in sales cycles with them.

Instead, make it worthwhile for consulting companies who already have these clients to resell your solution. They'll be your real customers!

fbliss
You hit the nail on the head here, I can't afford to (nor do I want to) reach end users - that's why the system integrators are key, and I know they want a good solid solution to offer.

Thanks for putting a unique angle on your point, that helps reinforce my feeling on who I should be talking to. Its the same way I sell system architecture and development services - through designers who need it. Keeps me from dealing with end users who have no idea what I'm doing back there. (during the sales process at least) ;D

fbliss
Also, congrats on winning BattleHack Austin. ;)
mattwritescode
It really is a case of just getting the word out. I know on HN there is sometimes the need to conceal identity but here is the perfect place to put a link to your product (its free advertising).

What you need to do is spend no more time developing the application (unless for support for the next few weeks). Use the time saved to identify how your competitors market there tool, the techniques used etc.

Then you need to identify website where similar tools are discussed and go there with the aim of helping people. Every so often mentioning a particular product that you know very well.

It will mean that when people come to buy products if they see your softwares name it will be in there thoughts.

Likewise try to connect with people and businesses on twitter and publicly reply to them and there needs explaining how your software can help them. Its amazing the number of companies who do in-depth analysis of competitors conversations with clients and potential customers.

fbliss
Thanks Matt! That's very detailed advice, I greatly appreciate it!