Marketing is the hard part: Why most founders struggle with selling, not building

Don't end up with an MVP without PMF.

I've been thinking a lot about what separates successful companies from those that fade away. And time after time, I keep coming back to one fundamental truth that was highlighted in a discussion among founders this week.

Building a product is often the easiest part of creating a successful business. The real challenge? Selling and marketing it effectively.

This might sound counterintuitive, especially if you're a technical founder who's poured months into developing your product. The code, the design, the infrastructure - it all feels like the hard work. But the truth is, that's just the beginning.

Here's why marketing is actually the more challenging piece:

When you're building, you're in control. You know what you're creating, you understand how it works, and you can measure progress clearly. But when you start marketing, you're suddenly dealing with the messy, unpredictable world of human psychology. You're trying to convince people to care about something they might not even know they need.

It's like shouting into a void. Your amazing product exists, but nobody knows about it.

I see founders make this mistake constantly - they spend 90% of their time and resources on product development, then treat marketing as an afterthought. They assume that if they build something good enough, customers will magically appear.

But that's almost never how it works.

The most successful companies I've worked with flip this. They spend significant time understanding their market before building anything. They validate ideas with real users as early as possible. And they recognize that marketing isn't something that happens after the product is built - it's integrated throughout the entire development process.

This is why having a strong network or someone who excels at sales can be absolute gold for a startup. The product only has to be "good enough" if your marketing and sales engines are firing on all cylinders.

I've seen companies with mediocre products absolutely dominate markets because they understood how to sell. Meanwhile, technically superior products languish in obscurity because their teams couldn't figure out how to reach customers effectively.

What's the takeaway here? If you're a founder, you need to shift your mindset.

Marketing isn't fancy ads or clever social media strategies. It's deeply understanding your customers' problems and positioning your solution in a way that resonates. It's creating sharp messages that poke at pain. And it's about building systems that consistently bring new customers in the door.

This means you need to allocate resources accordingly. Your marketing budget shouldn't be whatever is left over after product development. It should be a primary investment, especially in the early stages when you're trying to find product-market fit.

And if marketing isn't your strength (which is true for many technical founders), recognize this early. Either commit to learning it as a core skill, partner with someone who excels at it, or hire expertise as soon as you can afford to.

The bottom line? The best product doesn't always win. The best-marketed product does.

So as you think about your business strategy for the coming year, ask yourself: Am I giving marketing the attention it deserves? Or am I falling into the trap of thinking that building a great product is enough?

Because in most cases, it's not. And the sooner you embrace that reality, the better your chances of success. There’s nothing worse than spending all your time and resources building something in a vacuum that doesn’t have product market fit. That’s what happens when you don’t have a constant feedback loop from marketing.