Are Marketers More Important Than Developers?

In tech startups, marketers are more important than developers.

That’s what one aspiring entrepreneur and software developer told me today in a huddle at Charlie O’Donnell’s NextNY “NYC Media: Meet the Startups” event at Sun Microsystems’ New York City office. After admitting I was a marketing guy, three other young entrepreneurs at early-stage startups nodded their heads in agreement about that assertion. I was surprised, honored and a little embarrassed.

While I love to celebrate my art and craft, I disagree. In the case of these fledgling entrepreneurs, who admitted being one-dimensional engineering types, marketing was their weak spot. They believe they were penalized as a result. Therefore, they overvalued marketing’s relative importance.

Yet here’s the truth: Marketing and product development are mutually dependent competencies in any successful Web startup – and in any business, really. It can be that both competencies come organically to a single person, or separately via multiple people on a team.

Product development and engineering must lead, for without it, there is nothing beyond an idea. But development also needs marketing to identify opportunity, reconcile development with that market opportunity, and channel development in a way that creates extraordinary value. Without marketing, development is nothing beyond a science project.

That’s why it’s important to be multidimensional – as individuals as well as teams. But being multidimensional doesn’t just happen. It comes through conscious investment in things like education, cultural enrichment, social activities and environment. At Clickable, our startup, multidimensionality is one of our three core values. We refer to it as being an “and” culture.

Are you multidimensional?

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Published by Max Kalehoff

Father, sailor and marketing executive.

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4 Comments

  1. Interesting discussion… after the financial crash last year, I can't tell you how many times discussions I had with San Francisco / Bay Area startups started with them requesting help getting the word out about their product/site but ended with them saying “but we have no money to pay you because it is all going to our developers.” It's hard to argue that technology companies need the people that create the technology.. but those of us that create buzz have got to pay rent too! Good discussion, Max. Thanks for bringing it up. –Sukhjit

  2. Interesting discussion… after the financial crash last year, I can't tell you how many times discussions I had with San Francisco / Bay Area startups started with them requesting help getting the word out about their product/site but ended with them saying “but we have no money to pay you because it is all going to our developers.” It's hard to argue that technology companies need the people that create the technology.. but those of us that create buzz have got to pay rent too! Good discussion, Max. Thanks for bringing it up. –Sukhjit

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