Programmers like to program - it’s what we do. Just like doctors like to doctor, preachers like to preach, and waiters like to wait. We like it so much, we don’t want to do anything else. We don’t want to worry about all that pesky advertising; we don’t want to spend hours or days choosing just the right words for our web-site; we don’t want to bother with all that marketing stuff - after all, the product is good enough to sell itself. Right?

Wrong.

This is the fatal flaw that destroys many small software companies. Starting out, our knowledge base is limited. We know how to write code and design software, so this is what we do. We release a version 1 of our first product, listen to feedback, and follow it up with a version 2 a couple of months later. It’s good enough to sell, but we don’t know how to sell. It has the potential to sell well if we could just get our message across, but we don’t know how to market.

The next version of PageFour is on the drawing board. After taking feedback from existing users - and scratching my head over a bottle of Merlot - a list of changes and enhancements has been carefully put together. It’s a strong list, and the product will be stronger as a result. The temptation to take this list and start writing code has been overwhelming. Six hard weeks of work, followed by a testing run, and version 3 would have been ready by the end of March.

The road to failure is filled with writing code.

For a small software company to succeed, the two parts of the business must be given equal weighting. Yes, design a great product, and keep making it greater. But we need to work just as long and hard at marketing the product, at getting our message out there.

For most of our careers, we looked down on the guys in marketing and sales, as if their jobs were somehow beneath us. Now, our success depends on learning their skills.

My development plan for PageFour has shifted somewhat. The list remains, but the time frame has changed. Instead of working for two solid months, testing heavily and releasing, I plan to release after each feature is implemented. This means four releases over the next four months - a steady development of the product, progressing side by side with the marketing.

No more mad rush to write code.