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Why I started to work at Novu - Things that you don't want to hear 😡

Nevo David on October 13, 2022

Last time I discussed my journey at Linvo and becoming open-source. Today, I want to explain why I chose to work for Novu :) Being a senior devel...

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Shai Almog • Oct 14 '22

Nicely said but:

"You have never heard of a startup failing because they didn't have a product."

As a former consultant I can tell you about quite a few startups that failed to have a product. Raised a ton of money on an idea and failed to deliver. Obviously a marketing person wouldn't hear about such a startup since... They failed to have a product.

But yes. You are right. People sell PLG a lot but they forget that marketing is the butter that smooths out the PLG process.

Nevo David • Oct 14 '22

PLG need a starter :)

Bartosz Krawczyk • Oct 15 '22

Nice article. I was guilty of exactly that with my last startup. We've spent years coding without any marketing.

I think it's a common problem with developers who starts their own products. We code every day for someone else and think "I could do that, but on my own". But we think only about tech and see programming as everything that is needed to build a successful startup. It is simply not true.

Good advice: "start marketing the day you start coding" - quote by Rob Walling.

Nevo David • Oct 15 '22

I agree, Today I even suggest doing marketing before intial release :)

Santosh Bhandari • Oct 14 '22 • Edited

Hey, that's my line:

But I do love coding. I can sit for hours without standing writing code.

Nevo David • Oct 14 '22

Haha no toilet breaks!

Jean-Michel 🕵🏻‍♂️ Fayard • Oct 14 '22 • Edited

Great points.
I was just like you.
I thought I disliked marketing but what I actually dislike is sales.

Sales != Marketing

Sales is optional, marketing is not

Nevo David • Oct 14 '22

Sales it's the last thing happening to acquire users, in some PLG platforms, sales are transparent, and you complete the sale yourself, and in other companies, there are salespeople; this is where things can get ugly.

Jean-Michel 🕵🏻‍♂️ Fayard • Oct 14 '22 • Edited

Exactly. That's sales and it happens at the very end
Marketing on the other hand happen way before that.

If you have a good project that to few people use, you have a marketing problem.
If you don't define who your audience is and what their real needs are, you have a marketing problem.
If you attract the wrong kind of people you have a marketing problem
If you want to be everything for everyone you have a marketing problem

And your marketing problem don't be fixed by adding new features and merging even more pull requests.