David Cummings on Startups

Startups Should Approach Everything as Marketing

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David Cummings

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Startups are great because they have a clean slate for all aspects of the business. While daunting, it’s also empowering in that there aren’t notions of “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” One theme I’m a fan of is the idea that startups should approach everything as marketing. Everything? Yes, everything.

Here are some examples of everything as marketing:

  • Awesome customer service so that clients love the startup and tell their friends
  • Amazing product interface and user experience that sets the tone for the brand
  • Quality sales people that are infectious with their passion
  • Enthusiastic team members in all aspects of the business

Marketing is defined as: the action or business of promoting and selling products or services (Webster’s dictionary). For startups, the product is the entire startup, not just the product that’s sold. The operative word in the definition is “promoting” since all interactions, whether digital or personal, are promoting or detracting from the startup. Startups should approach everything as marketing.

What else? What are some other examples of everything as marketing?

Comments

2 responses to “Startups Should Approach Everything as Marketing”

  1. Mike Schinkel (@mikeschinkel) Avatar
    Mike Schinkel (@mikeschinkel)

    Absolutely David.

    Too many people equate “Marketing” with “Advertising” and/or with companies trying to get people to buy crap and/or to buy something they don’t need. During my younger years as an engineering student at Ga Tech I used to think that. (And unfortunately many companies that have to generate ever higher numbers for public investors frequently fall into that trap.)

    But since I’ve learned what marketing really is I’ve come to think that it’s not only the most important thing, in many ways it’s the only thing. The best marketers create products and services that their constituents absolutely love and are very happy to pay for. To me that’s the job of everyone within a startup, from customer service to engineer to CEO; to make raving fans.

    And that’s great marketing.

    Reply
  2. Dominic Zabriskie Avatar
    Dominic Zabriskie

    I don’t have any examples to add, but 100% agree with the concept. I recently experienced one specific instance where a single user who loved our service so much and took it upon himself to tell all his cohorts to check us out produced more revenue in a single month than we could have hoped for by spending an entire year and 1000s of dollars on Adwords. It was incredible to witness.

    Reply

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