The year 2015 was a heady time to do marketing for tech startups. The venture
baronry that controlled the fates of founders had decided that markets, rather
than engineering or personnel, made or broke new companies. If you were a
strategist or a creative, swagger came with the job, along with corporate Uber and
free lunches of glistening sushi. You’d enter a pitch meeting in your sharp blow-
out and bravura nail art—every time; it was all about the rose gold accent nail
that year—extremely confident that a solid creed preceded you. The only thing
startups need is markets.QMarketing was on fleek, just as “on fleek” was on fleek.
Those were the days. I was the editorial director of a tech marketing shop based
in San Francisco, and—having come up as a blowout-deprived journalist—I felt
almost high on the luxe marketing-chick lifestyle. Not only did the job often seem
like one long perk, but it was important. I knew, almost by heart, “The Only Thing
That Matters,” the 2007 essay by Marc Andreessen, in which the oracle of Menlo
Park argued that markets are, indeed, “the most important factor in a startup’s
success or failure.”QBut didn’t the product matter? The team? Not really.
WHEN
MARKETING
LOSES ITS
COOL
Keep calm and consider supply and demand.
BY VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
MIND GRENADES
ILLUSTRATION / NINA CITA 0 1 1
