What’s something you believed in marketing or business that turned out to be wrong (myth-busting)?
Online, we’re constantly exposed to different takes and opinions, which can easily shape unrealistic or skewed expectations about what actually works in practice.
And it’s not just life in general; it happens a lot in business too.
Is there a myth or assumption you believed in entrepreneurship that later turned out to be different once you experienced it yourself?
For example, I used to believe that publishing just 4 – 5 posts would be enough to start selling a product. I genuinely thought it could be that simple because I had heard people say “content sells.”
But I didn’t realise that there are actually foundational steps in marketing that come before that – a sequence, a strategy, and long-term consistency required before content really starts to convert.
Replies
One assumption I had was that if the product is good enough, people will somehow find it. In reality, a good product still needs distribution. You have to keep explaining the problem, showing up in the right places, and building trust before people even give it a chance.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@farrukh_butt1 😂🤝 I think that we followed the same marketing book "good product sells itself"... hahah,nice try but nope!
Many, many, times I have molded a product to perceived perfection only to find no one wants it in its current form and we needed to pivot.
InteliQ started as a Call Agent agentic guide, helping agents say the right thing when they get stuck - its brilliant, but what clients actually wanted was the recruitment and onboarding pieces! It has these features now, but we actually should have built these first.
A good tip is to get your MVP out and learn from your peers and potential customers - you will be surprised at how you will probably need to pivot it, but at least you won't have been wasting dev time moving it in the wrong direction!
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@mark_trowbridge Knowing these things before... I would start with a basic functioning MVP earlier... so I would save so much time before :D
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@olivier_jury Question: What was the post about that brought you leads?
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@olivier_jury okay, do you have a link to that post?
@busmark_w_nika Pas de lien désolé, mais voilà la recette du post à 400 vues :
1. Hook douleur chiffrée : "Les PME perdent X€/an à cause de Y"
2. 3 erreurs concrètes avec exemples terrain, pas de théorie
3. CTA simple : "Commente 'AUDIT' si tu veux mon diagnostic gratuit"
400 vues, 100% décideurs locaux.
Le ciblé > viral. Toujours.
I believed if you build something genuinely useful, people will find it. "Build it and they will come" felt logical because the product was the hard part.
What I learned: distribution is a completely separate skill from building, and it does not reward quality by default. You can solve a real problem well and still hear silence for months. The product and the reach are two different jobs, and the second one does not happen on its own. @busmark_w_nika
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@mpanpalli True, I also thought that when I describe technicalities, people would appreciate it. But they don't matter. They just want to see the benefit/outcome.
@busmark_w_nika Exactly. Technicalities feel important from the inside because that is where the hard work happened. But from the outside nobody cares how it works, they only care what it does for them. Took me longer than I would like to admit to make that shift.
I used to think a great product would market itself. Turns out distribution matters just as much as the product itself
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@mountaga_diallo I noticed this one pattern thanks to Twitter!
That a good product markets itself. I believed it completely on my first build and spent months polishing features nobody had asked for. Launched my current product today and did the opposite: started distribution before the build was finished, put attribution on every shared link so I know which channel actually converts, and rewrote the landing page three times based on what real users said back. Good product is the entry fee. Distribution is the game.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@oshylabs Distribution has become a commodity for this century and AI era :)
@busmark_w_nika Agreed, and that is the uncomfortable part. When anyone can ship a product and a hundred posts in a day, distribution stops being a moat and attention becomes the scarce thing. The edge now is being specific enough that the right people recognise themselves in the first line. Narrow beats loud.
Bond
It's so much about consistency. "People buy when they've seen your product for the 7th or 8th time."
e.g. running meta ads...you need to give it a bit before seeing what messages work vs which ones don't.
When you're first getting started a great marketing campaign is finding 1,000 people that you can target on every platform (to get those 7-8 touchpoints) and then see what % converts.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@chloesamaha I swear that when people see our ad on a loop, they simply become more aware and are more likely to buy. I realised this when I have been doing Meta ads massively for 3+ years and people from abroad, when I meet them personally, admit they know about us :)
@busmark_w_nika I don’t really think there was anything that I believed, heard as a myth, or assumed from an entrepreneur perspective. I never really thought I’d be embarking on this journey to be candid. All of it feels new and sometimes overwhelming, not because of complexity, but more because I don’t know the subjects enough to understand the downstream implications, that allow me to correlate decisions and potential future outcomes.
In regards to your marketing belief, is there anything you can share from your initial experience? Like what was the best first move you made and why? Thanks.
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@wereframe My best move was not to hide things privately, only for myself. The best decision was building my personal brand.
Hi. One of the biggest myths I had to unlearn is that content alone sells. I used to think a handful of posts would be enough to drive traction, but in reality content only works when it’s part of a bigger system clear positioning, consistent distribution, and a repeatable funnel.
Another one is the idea that tools replace process. Early on I believed adopting the right CRM or automation stack would fix growth. What I learned is that without a simple, disciplined workflow, tools just amplify the chaos.
What’s a belief you had about marketing myths that turned out completely different once you were in the trenches?
Honestly, that there is such a thing as over-strategizing and under-executing. Setting aside the time to get your foundation right is important. You want to know with crystal clarity how you want to be perceived and why. But once you have that, go ahead and execute. Throw stuff at the wall. Use the data to plan your next steps. Pre-marketing plan execution strategy matters but some things you can only figure out when you see how the actual audience responds.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@denitsapenchevavaltchanova True, you will learn many things after they are messed up... many many times :D