Great article but you missed an important point: founders and marketers are different kinds of people and use different skill sets.

I help both startups and established mostly life sciences (but occasionally tech companies) with their communications and marketing. In my experience, the people who have the hardest time with marketing are first-time founders that like you, have never worked with a marketer.

As a founder you have a very specific vision of your product and what you want it to do. A marketer will likely come in and create a vision that complements your but more often than not will seem foreign and uncomfortable.

If they’re good, they will help you understand what they’re going to do and why. If they’re really good, they’ll help you set up tests to test your positioning, to test your value proposition, and eventually to test how you sell your product/company/service. Regardless, the best marketers should help you feel comfortable with the discomfort you’re feeling around the activities they’re taking to help you grow your business.

It sounds like you went through a great deal of customer development, but without someone who focuses on marketing you may not have learned how to tell your story to the marketplace, expand your audience and sell your product. It happens all the time but at least you learned from your mistake.

Keep up the great work.