Making what people want is not enough anymore

A decade ago "build things people want" was the startup mantra. It still is. But it's not enough anymore. Today we must capture attention, too.

Jun 16, 2024

I had a bit of an epiphany recently.

Making things people want isn’t enough anymore. In a way, it was never enough, of course. The joke goes that first-time founders focus on the product, and second-time founders focus on distribution (true that).

The oldest known ad in the world, 3000 BC, promoted a weaving shop through content marketing.

Of course, sales and marketing existed forever. But up until recently, they’ve been a support function. We are used to tech companies with marketing teams. We are not used to marketing companies with tech teams. See the difference?

Printing money during the financial crisis

Back in 2008, I used to work for a business, which was as profitable as a small drug cartel. We hired excellent developers as quickly as possible to build cool things, and some of those things would make money.

Much of what we built failed, but some things worked and made a lot of cash (the opening story in my book is about the boss of that company — he’s cool!).

Today, this strategy wouldn’t work. Today, companies are laying off developers instead of hiring them hand over fist. I don’t think this simply reflects a stagnating economy or a difficult fundraising environment.

Instead, the capacity to deliver is becoming commoditised, whether you’re building software, hardware, houses, doing coaching or anything else. The ability to deliver is becoming a given.

What seems to matter just as much as the ability to deliver and know what people will want to buy is the ability to capture their attention.

A shift in quantity is a shift in quality

Today, we rely so much on social networks to get information, news, entertainment, networking and more that whoever knows how to capture the audience's attention will win over those who don’t.

Building a personal brand is one topic that’s been really hot in my network of entrepreneurs.

On the face of it, personal brand is a fancy way of saying “lots of followers on social media”. It’s nothing new.

But what I see as a big shift is that entrepreneurs in my network running regular companies are waking up to the fact that unless they master social media, they’ll struggle to sell their product with old-fashioned word-of-mouth and Google ads strategies.

I just returned from an invite-only conference of entrepreneurs where one of the most popular discussions was a workshop on building a personal brand on LinkedIn. At the last conference, it was also the most oversubscribed topic — delivered by a different entrepreneur with a big personal brand.

A shift in quantity is a shift in quality.

Things you can’t outsource

I am highly suspicious of any tech startup outsourcing their tech to someone else. Tech and product need to be led by one of the founders personally so that they can iterate and learn quickly.

Social media marketing is joining this list of founders-can’t-outsource-things.

When I started Makers in 2013, we laser-focused on good training and getting our students employed. A part-time contractor called Chris posted something on Twitter, giving us clients.

I think I was too busy to even speak to Chris. Later we built a marketing team, but it was never as important internally as the coaching team, responsible for the quality of training.

If I were to start Makers today, I would still pay attention to the quality of training, but I would pay just as much attention to our ability to capture the audience’s attention through all social media channels on day one.

Not just being present there but investing in high-quality, engaging content and constantly iterating. A day a week would probably be spent in front of a camera.

This is not because I like cameras. I really don’t, especially in selfie mode. But I’ve got to master it because I think that making something people want is not enough anymore.

Tiktok-ification of everything

I’m officially allergic to every bit of Gary Vee. I used to ignore him because I’m not “in social media”. I never had aspirations to be an influencer or go into marketing. Can’t I hire a marketer in the same way I can hire a lawyer or an accountant?

But I started listening to his new book, Day Trading Attention (it’s included in Spotify Premium), and the guy makes sense.

He makes a powerful argument that boils down to this:

Everything is increasingly consumed through social media
All networks follow TikTok in shifting from a follower graph to an interest graph, meaning that you see not the content from your friends but the content The Algorithm thinks you’re likely to engage with.
People who know how to create engaging content will win over those who spend money on boring ads.

In other words, a decade ago, social networks were about catching up with friends, while businesses spent on ads to get you to buy stuff. It the ad was good, that was the cherry on top.

Today, social networks are showing you things you want to see. If your ad is boring, you’ll lose to people who create genuinely interesting content. People allocating marketing spend see far better results if they amplify great organic content instead of trying to devise a genius strategy in the boardroom, trying to guess what will work.

Simply put, it is too expensive not to know how to create great content.

Gary Vee has a point. Marketing isn’t for the marketing teams anymore. It’s got to be top of mind for the CEO of any business, whether you sell cement or coffee. So no, I can’t “just hire a marketer”. I need to be one. You too.

Everyone is a CEO

And if you’re self-employed, you’re the CEO of yourself.

As a coach, I need to be good at two things. One is coaching, which is why much of my focus over the last three years has been on coaching training with AoEC, CTI, Aletheia and Coaches Rising and getting a Professional Certified Coach badge from the International Coaching Federation. However, knowing what I do as a founder coach is table stakes.

Another thing I need to be good at is building my coaching business. And as an entrepreneur, my instinct tells me that I need to take building a personal brand seriously.

Hence, the book I just published. Hence, the podcast on CEO Succession that I’m preparing to launch. Hence, this Substack. Hence, you might have seen more content on LinkedIn from me recently, including videos.

What’s new here is that I could have largely ignored this once upon a time and focused on being a good coach. I suspect this time is over. Mastering social media was optional a few years ago. I suspect it’s becoming part of the core curriculum for all entrepreneurs out there, including you, whatever you do.

Agree?