Why marketing is not "go see my customer"

Many first time startup underestimates the difficulty of marketing. They thought that marketing consists of taking your products or MVP to see your customer for feedback or approval. It is not so.

You don't find customers. You let customers in the market find you.

MARKET physically exist. It is the stores, the online stores. Social media is adding features of "market", for example you can buy T shirts from some Youtube channels. MARKET is where people pull out their wallet and BUY!

Customers only pull out wallet in MARKET. It is the place they feel save, because they can COMPARE! Historically, market is protected, and merchants in the markets need to pay fees. You pay stall rents in local farmers markets, and you pay fees to Amazon and JD so your "virtual ranking" is closer to customer's searches.

MANY PEOPLE MAKING THEIR LIVING IN MARKETS. They pocket the fees and commissions and feed their family. AS SUCH, MARKETS ARE HEAVILY PROTECTED.

TO ENTER MARKETS is like landing on Normandy beach. You don't go in a market. You break in.

Markets are booby trapped with special hidden rules. For self protection. That is why a technical person would struggle without a local tour guard - the marketing insider. The market's insider's rules is a thick book and take years to master.

Market rules are counter intuitive.

There is no vacuum in business. The vacuum is desert. To have business, break into the market and go through the mafia and bouncers.

Market is not a normal open place. Think of it as booby trapped. You need bomb experts and hackers who knows the exactly situation in each market and industry.

The industrial revolution has made specialized automated large scale manufacturing of virtually everything happen. There is an oversupply of most things - hence selling them becomes more important than making them.

Marketing is 90% of the work of product development. And marketing cost is roughly 90% of the price of an item. If you can make something for 10 dollars, you must sell it to end consumer at 100.

Customers seek you out in the market - don't solicit from them. Customers want to check out your competitors too. That is why they go to market.

Setting up stalls in market is marketing.