Why this blog/topic?

I read a ton of blogs every day– well over a 100. The vast majority of them have to do with technology and programming. (I haven’t programmed in a little over a decade– partly because I wasn’t very good at it.) But in Silicon Valley today there’s a laser-focus on the product, and given that most products today are websites and web applications, this means a lot of talk on programming. I believe this to generally be a very good thing.

The 90’s boom was driven by what today’s coders call ‘pointy haired business guys’, and there was a ton of money and time wasted focusing on creating expensive advertising & fancy parties while the programmers were marginalized and a lot of the products pretty much sucked. Then the dot.com bubble burst, and for years stuff sat there. Seriously. You had products which were still usable, but no one touched them. And then you had Revenge of the Nerds. The product became king again… products improved, and new ones were created. Think about it. Did Mapquest or Yahoo change for years? Nope. I can hardly think of any innovations or changes in years. Then suddenly Google Maps appeared. It had a focus on the product, creating a spiffy new look (using, gasp, new technology!) and cool new features. Sure enough, shortly after, both Yahoo and AOL upgraded their offerings. While it all didn’t necessarily start with Google, we’re definitely in the second age of really cool new things popping up (and improving) daily. Except this time with that laser-focus on getting the product (not the advertising/launch party) right.

Most tech startups today focus on Marketing absolutely last. Until this point there exists a relentless focus on getting the product right, and doing what’s best for the user– everything else is a distraction. I want to show that there’s also value in “marketing” and how a marketer thinks about things.