Discussions about marketing - forked from trading thread

I agree but volunteering can be rewarding to both parties. It is a genuine offer and think it deserves more consideration. It’s a kind act because it would be a huge help.

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I agree :+1:

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Guys please, we’ve waited for five years some even more, what’s one more year. Marketing isn’t just something you start without thinking about it. What are we going to market, how are we going to market it, what lines of communication do we prefer, how do you want the world to see us? In times in which the SEC is going after a lot of privacy driven projects, do we even want to draw attention to ourselves without working project?

Let the team focus on the network, then we can discuss marketing.

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Nobody (I hope) is suggesting that the foot is taken off the development pedal AT ALL.
Any marketing effort should be volunteer driven and absolutely in ADDITION to dev effort.

If due to happy circs on the BTC market , the team has a little more leeway, then that’s cool and I have utterly no doubt will be spent wisely - and if that includes allocating @Sotros25 some funds to work with , that all good.

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Thinking that volunteers kicking of marketing isn’t going to draw attention away from the developers is utopia.

Marketing done right will draw attention to the project, good and bad. Sometimes you can ignore the bad, sometimes you gotta respond. That’s not always a simple yes or no, it’s a complex project, ethics are involved too.

I’ve always admired the teams transparency on things, but we as a community don’t know all the considerations. I have full faith in David to know whats best for the network in the long run.

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@KafkaLee

Even more to your point:

When the “launch” target feature set is functionally complete, that would be the correct time to begin marketing.

At the current pace, that could be as much as six months away.

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@Sotros25 seems well qualified in this field and given that it’s a voluntary position I would assume it would be taking care of essentials and maybe coming up with a future marketing plan. By essentials I believe she is intending to reach out to reputable exchanges and fill out the proper materials. I’m sure she will share exactly her goals that would be no cost to Maidsafe or the community. It’s a very generous offer much like what @DeusNexus is doing for the project/community.

These two efforts in conjunction could be great for Maidsafe’s runway and future budget so that we can more easily market when the network is about to go live.

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My point flew over your head.
I understand your concerns, but let me try to explain from another point of view, because the role of marketing is as crucial as having a working product.

Think a company like a body.
You might argue you that your brain is the most important organ in your body, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be at cost of shutting down the rest of your bodily functions.
There are moments where, yes, you must constrict the blood vessels in cases of trauma or hypothermia to protect “essential organs”, but we can agree that it is not a condition where a healthy body that can thrive or sustain for a prolonged period. In fact that is the condition where we get in survival mode.
From the neuron in the brain to the goblet cell in your rectum, every single cell in your body is actually essential for a healthy body.

Marketing and product development should be a in a feedback loop as both depends on the other.
In fact, marketing is done before a product is even conceptualized, it is done while the product is developed, it is done while it is getting ready to be sold, it is done while it is being sold, and after it was sold.

So whenever I hear that there are things more important than marketing, you are actually telling there are other things more important than your product.

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This is so pertinent. If you were on the outside looking in, with little or no knowledge of Safe Network, how much attention would you pay to someone shouting about a new product with hard-to-describe characteristics and no working product? A beta version would be hard enough to promote and that, I believe, is some distance down the road. With many of the important details of the project still in flux how could you form a cohesive, informative marketing campaign that could be assured of not becoming irrelevant and, thus confusing, to the marketing audience, in short time?

Yes, marketing will be needed at the appropriate time but imo it should wait until there is more clarity and maturity with the project.

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You guys make great points.
What is crazy is all the shit coins above MAID that only have marketing and never will have a product. Of course many of these projects are conning people and I’m not suggesting we do that.

We should be able to strike a balance here. We have a real network with amazing attributes that is being birthed. It should be possible to create excitement around this alone considering the shit coins do it knowing full well they will never deliver.

MaidSafe will deliver. Their sheer will is exciting.
It’s a heroic story. Filled with the highs and lows. We are getting to the climax of the first episode in a long series to come.

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@Knosis

Agreed.

IMO the balance would be for a marketing brainstorming thread to be created with the goal of having, at least, a list of excellent ideas ready to adapt to the reality of the product at the exact moment that:

Obviously it would be ideal if @Sotros25 was willing to spearhead that topic and develop a plan that could be proposed and potentially funded by the wider community.

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Maybe the team and the project itself is a thing that could be marketed? Yes, of course there is also the aim where they are heading - and needs to be - but at the moment the team and the story itself is something that could draw people in? At least it is really big part of the reason why I am keeping my bet in. Also the economical potential of course, but I just want to support people doing their thing with such an integrity and honesty. I feel that I’m making a world better place just supporting that kind of boogie. (I also drew my money out of IOTA once it looked like their leader didn’t seem so decent.)

The network is so much more problematic to market, because it is not here yet, and we don’t know what kind of changes are ahead. If it marketed as a one thing, but at some point becomes slightly other thing, that is a problem.

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I have been “against marketing” all along. But I do think @piluso is right. It could well be that I don’t even really know what marketing means. When I think of marketing, I think of telemarketers, and that’s clearly not what is meant by e.g. @Sotros25. I do believe in the importance of expertise, so …

On the other hand, I’m not sure a “product” is actually being “sold” here. A platform is being created, but that’s not necessarily the same thing.

And I think even “spreading the word” about a project may be in some cases do more harm than good, as long as there is little to demonstrate.

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Ok, if I’m reading this correctly it’s less about having the funds (although still crucial) and more about having the plan against which to allocate the funds. That’s understandable, and something I’d be keen to help think through.

Happy to help :blush:

See below:

As already indicated, my experience includes:

  • Media planning for a $3B beverage company
  • Strategic planning for a $60B insurer, $12B tech company, and not for profit clients
  • Marketing, operations & sales for a $2B industrial goods supplier
  • Management & strategy consulting w/ Bain where I worked with clients across multiple industries and capabilities including growth strategy, organizational design, R&D strategy, marketing, procurement strategy, etc.
  • Currently lead a cross-functional innovation and product dev team for a $45B insurer
  • Hold a BA & MBA from the University of Chicago as well

I’ll pause there, but that should help paint the picture.

Precisely. Different skill sets. Both needed.

Appreciated, but what matters most to me is getting results.

I would like to think that I’m thinking…

The time to lay the groundwork and start building the foundation is now, thus paving the way for incremental growth.

In addition to goals, I also strongly believe metrics and KPIs are absolutely necessary. Exchange listings are a priority target, and I will revisit the earlier Marketing Initiatives proposal I already shared to see what else may be relevant/how we can evolve from there.

Thank you!!! I once had a client—executive brand manager (for that $12B tech company) laugh when I asked whether she was sharing marker research data with R&D. She said “we don’t do that here.” I shook my head and thought, “and you wonder why you can’t sell your products…” No brand platform or messaging strategy can fix a product that doesn’t stem from consumer-centric design. This is why involving marketing in the developmental process is so key. Spoiler: things have not gone well for that tech company b/c they refused to prioritize marketing and integrate consumer-centric design.

Yet another reason why marketing is necessary. If marketing had been central earlier on there would be much less difficulty around articulating Safe’s positioning.

Exactly. Products are important, but clearly not what moves the market in the short to mid term. If one leans on strategies and tactics optimized for the long term only, then one will not make it to the longterm.

That’s been done several times. Now is the time for action. At the end of they day someone has to do something instead of just talking about it and endlessly pontificating.

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@Sotros25

Well, noone’s stopping you so I say get to work and let’s see what you come up with.

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Reframe “Marketing” to “Intelligence” and you will get a more accurate depiction of what they actually do. In both cases, they gather data and process it into actionable information for the decision makers.
Broadly speaking it is about asking the right questions: Where are we, who are they, what they want, what do we have, where can they get it, how do they like it?, how can we use all this to increase adoption?
What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Who is a threat to you? Are the threats external or internal? What opportunities are we missing that are out there?
What can we do to prepare against them or strengthen our position?

It is about getting total awareness to know where you are standing and making informed decisions that matters and it is executed efficiently to get where you want to get.
This is applicable to everything in life, it doesn’t matter if it is for a for-profit company, or a non-profit, your personal life or a military operation.

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This all makes a lot of sense to me. You and piluso have very eloquently laid out why marketing/sales is so important throughout product development. My background is engineering management at an aerospace company so I understand your points from personal experience. And it could get distracting for the development team. But maybe there are ways to mitigate that concern and still get going sooner rather than later given the significant potential benefits.

What about laying out a roadmap/outline that illustrates what you would want to do from a marketing perspective and when?

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Don’t want to throw @JimCollinson under the proverbial bus but he works in tandem with the team to provide what @Sotros25 is talking about with the front end so that the backend features match what the UI/UX end goals need for consumers. So maybe @Sotros25 and @JimCollinson being in communication would be best to not distract the engineering? Just a thought. Jim is very plugged in so the perfect individual to correspond with, IMO.

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The Safe network is a decentralized project.

Anyone can help with marketing without anyone’s permission.

Do you like the ideas behind the Safe Network? What stops you from telling the world? Write your thoughts on Safe in an article. Post an ad on Facebook/Twitter.

If you can’t write, get one of MaidSafe’s old articles. Post an ad on Facebook/Twitter.

You have an idea for an article, write to me and we will do it together. Post an ad on Facebook/Twitter.

Only 20k addresses have MAID. This is 0.00025% of humanity. I very much doubt that only 0.00025% are able to understand why Safe is the future. It is much more likely that other people do not know what we are working on here…

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This sums it up. No plan just statements. I have been in HR for 30 years. I dont go around telling David how he should hire the best engineers to complete this project. And if i had a solution i’d present a plan and a final outcome that is tied to that plan. Else its hot air. Seen it many times in the many industries i have been in. Fyi…i am a legend for recruiting top candidates in the organization’s i have worked in.

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