8 / You can't multiply by 0

Welcome to Issue 8!

There’s a moment every founder hits early on that’s a real head-scratcher: you need a great product to market it well, but you also need to market to get the kind of feedback that helps you build a great product.

It’s one of the things I talked about this week with Alex Mann. He has led marketing at companies like Elly.ai and helped bring early-stage products into the world in a thoughtful, strategic way. What I appreciated about our conversation was how clearly he broke down what makes go-to-market work and where a lot of teams get stuck.

One idea in particular stood out to me: you can’t multiply by zero.

If the product experience isn’t there, even the best marketing campaign won’t get you anywhere. And the inverse is true too. A strong product with no marketing, will wither on the vine.

That’s the challenge for most early-stage teams. It’s so tempting to go heads down, either on building or on selling. But long-term momentum comes from doing both, even when it feels too early, too messy, or too uncomfortable.

What I really liked about Alex’s perspective was the reminder that marketing doesn’t have to be this overwhelming, high-stakes operation. You don’t need a perfect system or a massive team to get started. Sometimes it’s just about setting up something simple like an email sequence, a LinkedIn post, a landing page, and doing it consistently. Over time, that consistency compounds.

I think a lot of us get tripped up by the idea that we need to figure everything out all at once. But startups aren’t built that way. They’re built through small systems that work, that can grow, and that we can stick with.

That’s the headspace I’m taking into next week as I sit back down to build: finding that balance between creating something meaningful and making sure the world hears about it, even in small ways.

Let’s get Technically Lit,

Nick

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Glass icons and a good cause? Talk about a win/win.