Product or Audience? Which is better, and which should you focus on?

[MJ DeMarco]

The power of building an audience as opposed to building a product seems to have a lot of spotlight lately.

For example, if you have 2M subscribers on YouTube, it would be easy to push them a product right? And not just a great product, but ANY product, right?

Everyone wants a IG following or a YT channel with millions of followers/subscribers so they can sell their influence.

This is not a bad strategy, but I don't believe it is optimal. For starters, Control and Entry, which are non-existent on such platforms. To circumvent Control, you need to get so huge (think: Mr. Beast) that you possess leverage and unprecedented influence.

Second, just because you have a large audience, doesn't mean success is guaranteed. Mr. Beast and Joe Rogan are implicitly implying with their success that if we have millions of fans, monetization, or selling them something is super-simple.

It isn't, because ultimately, selling *something* comes down to a product.

Unique value. Something different.

If you attempt to sell your audience something that does not have perceived value and is seen more of a "money grab," you will be exposed as a fraud, and many in your audience will leave. This also goes for paid influencer promos -- ultimately, the product has to do the heavy lifting.

On the flip side, if you had an awesome product but started with ZERO audience, the speed at which you can get traction is greatly diminished, or worse, impossible, especially if you don't know how to market. The cure for cancer goes unsold if you can't sell it.

Both paths are not for the thin-skinned, or for person who quits easily.

However if I had to make a choice, I'd say that YOUR PRODUCT is by far, the most important.

Good products are viral. And good products sell.

A large audience? That doesn't guarantee success, sales, or traction.

Look below:



Another great example right now is Threads, by Meta, which hasn't (yet) seemed to have gained market adoption. Zuckerburg has the largest audience on the planet, and Threads sucks.

Other examples?

Remember Google+?
How about New Coke?

Here's a list of gigantic companies with huge audiences and huge influence who could not succeed because their product simply wasn't good enough.

35 of the biggest failed products from the world's biggest companies

From Nintendo's Virtual Boy to Amazon's Fire phone, even the biggest companies can have major flops. Here are some of the notable disappointments.

www.businessinsider.com

So...

#1) Build a product that everyone wants? And let your product help build the audience?
#2) Or build an audience and plug-in something later?

I'd pick #1 every time.

PS: There is NO right or wrong to this question as like many things, it can be solved in the gray with "It depends."

 

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[Jrjohnny]

My opinion is both.

Get your product idea, and get started.

When you get your final prototype, start building a audience.

By the time you get your product out there, you’ll have a small audience (250-1000) or even a big one (2000-10000+).

If you start building a audience, you might lose them and you might fall off.

But if you create a product before, it would be a pretty slow start up.

So you can just do both at the same time.

But if I’d have to pick one, it’d be product.

 

[EngineerThis]

I’d add, you get to pick the audience you want to sell a product too.

Hoping someone buys your product, or wondering who your product resonates with… is not strategic.

You get to pick who you want as a customer, as a creator. How cool is that?

 

[Ing]

Building an audience is a tool.
Having an asset or product to sell is the business.

 

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[ArielAaron]

17-year digital marketing professional here! I would say that both are important, but audience is critical. If you have a well defined audience, you understand a lot of different aspects that will influence your ability to decide on a product and sell it. The audience profile can determine the branding, pricing, naming, marketing strategy, messaging, etc. If you know who your target audience is, you can use that information to make data-informed decisions about what they like, where they live, how they buy, what brand messaging resonates with them, their budgets, lifestyles, socioeconomic status, motivators, their needs, wants, pain points-- the list goes on.

HubSpot has a pretty solid audience persona builder here: Make My Persona - Free Buyer Persona Template Generator (2023) but if you are feeling fancy, you might check out some of Experian's data segments. They released an audience lookbook document a few years back (see attached) that gives some high level audience insights (see page 20) to give you an idea of different audience targets.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

I'm inclined to go with #2 - as much as I dislike these influencers, they're doing something right.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

Good products are viral. And good products sell.

A large audience? That doesn't guarantee success, sales, or traction.

Interesting thread MJ, very valuable.

I think when we think of audiences, size isn’t the only thing that matters. For example, you can say Zuckerberg has a very big audience — that’s true, but his audience doesn’t really trust him.

Compare Zuckerberg with someone like Mr. Beast or even Andrew Tate. If the latter put up a shirt with a slogan on it for $10, they will sell thousands.

The difference is that their audience is engaged and trusts them, therefore they will do what they’re told much more than Zuckerberg’s audience.

Personally I still think an engaged audience is worth more than a great product, and if I had to choose between being gifted a great product or a great audience I’d choose the audience.

It also gives you more credibility, since the audience can be leveraged to sell many different products, the product not so much.

 

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[MitchC]

An audience is built with a product, that product is content.

That content is providing value to the person consuming it, and the people monetising it.

Being a content creator is very Fastlane.

Impact millions, make millions.

That said, building an audience first is a completely backwards way to launch a product.

You are basically creating 2 products and 2 businesses at the same time.

If your product needs an audience for it to work, it’s probably a shit product.

What will you do to grow outside of your audience if it is reliant on it?

Better to have a good product and pay for ads or other people’s audiences, unlimited scale.

Then you can build your own audience/customer base off of that.

 

[Cano]

the problem with this is that the product is perceived directly as an "influencer product" of course positive to your existing audience but negative to the rest who are not associated with you.

of course, this doesn't change the fact that the product sells and you make money with it. its still a great way to build your business.

 

[EngineerThis]

17-year digital marketing professional here! I would say that both are important, but audience is critical. If you have a well defined audience, you understand a lot of different aspects that will influence your ability to decide on a product and sell it. The audience profile can determine the branding, pricing, naming, marketing strategy, messaging, etc. If you know who your target audience is, you can use that information to make data-informed decisions about what they like, where they live, how they buy, what brand messaging resonates with them, their budgets, lifestyles, socioeconomic status, motivators, their needs, wants, pain points-- the list goes on.

HubSpot has a pretty solid audience persona builder here: Make My Persona - Free Buyer Persona Template Generator (2023) but if you are feeling fancy, you might check out some of Experian's data segments. They released an audience lookbook document a few years back (see attached) that gives some high level audience insights (see page 20) to give you an idea of different audience targets.

Another word for it is “Customer Avatar”

 

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[Panos Daras]

@MJ DeMarco is spot on about this! Last two years I have been working for a client with amazing marketing skills. Like a solid 9/10! Followers on social media? Huge!! International company? I bet you!

But at some point, they decided to ship garbage products. Because according to the CEO, we would lose momentum otherwise

After that super wise decision, you could see the chargebacks coming in, the refund requests, and customer support overwhelmed with no way to help these poor folks. What a friggin nightmare.

Final result? Bankruptcy. And, that is what I call a REAL loss of momentum!

So argue all you like, but MJ is 100% correct on this one! Don't get me wrong if you fail in Marketing you fail in execution.

But at the end of the day, Product Wins! (yes I did read that part in Mortal Kombat voice inside my head)

 

[MJ DeMarco]

So argue all you like, but MJ is 100% correct on this one! Don't get me wrong if you fail in Marketing you fail in execution.

But at the end of the day, Product Wins!

I'm not 100% firm on this, much like the "do I go to college" question.

However, I default to a product approach.

A great example is my own audience at YouTube. I think I have 60K+ subscribers, a mid-sized audience.

This audience would not be interested in a fishing product, or a vegan snack, or a beta-reading SAAS for aspiring authors. There has to be product-fit with the audience, so it creates somewhat of a pigeon hole.

 

[Kevin88660]

The power of building an audience as opposed to building a product seems to have a lot of spotlight lately.

For example, if you have 2M subscribers on YouTube, it would be easy to push them a product right? And not just a great product, but ANY product, right?

Everyone wants a IG following or a YT channel with millions of followers/subscribers so they can sell their influence.

This is not a bad strategy, but I don't believe it is optimal. For starters, Control and Entry, which are non-existent on such platforms. To circumvent Control, you need to get so huge (think: Mr. Beast) that you possess leverage and unprecedented influence.

Second, just because you have a large audience, doesn't mean success is guaranteed. Mr. Beast and Joe Rogan are implicitly implying with their success that if we have millions of fans, monetization, or selling them something is super-simple.

It isn't, because ultimately, selling *something* comes down to a product.

Unique value. Something different.

If you attempt to sell your audience something that does not have perceived value and is seen more of a "money grab," you will be exposed as a fraud, and many in your audience will leave. This also goes for paid influencer promos -- ultimately, the product has to do the heavy lifting.

On the flip side, if you had an awesome product but started with ZERO audience, the speed at which you can get traction is greatly diminished, or worse, impossible, especially if you don't know how to market. The cure for cancer goes unsold if you can't sell it.

Both paths are not for the thin-skinned, or for person who quits easily.

However if I had to make a choice, I'd say that YOUR PRODUCT is by far, the most important.

Good products are viral. And good products sell.

A large audience? That doesn't guarantee success, sales, or traction.

Look below:

View attachment 51011

Another great example right now is Threads, by Meta, which hasn't (yet) seemed to have gained market adoption. Zuckerburg has the largest audience on the planet, and Threads sucks.

Other examples?

Remember Google+?
How about New Coke?

Here's a list of gigantic companies with huge audiences and huge influence who could not succeed because their product simply wasn't good enough.

35 of the biggest failed products from the world's biggest companies

From Nintendo's Virtual Boy to Amazon's Fire phone, even the biggest companies can have major flops. Here are some of the notable disappointments.

www.businessinsider.com

So...

#1) Build a product that everyone wants? And let your product help build the audience?
#2) Or build an audience and plug-in something later?

I'd pick #1 every time.

PS: There is NO right or wrong to this question as like many things, it can be solved in the gray with "It depends."

I agree with this conclusion.

Having a big audience is wonderful but there is a huge step between listening your content for free and taking out his or her hard-earned dollar to buy a product and service. Having an audience often does not lead to sales.

As a result content creators with huge audience more often than not become agents or brokers selling market tested huge brand names and earning a commission.

Having an exceptionally good products it will sell on its own.

Sometimes it is the overall competitiveness and the value skew, that every small things played a part. I think Tesla cars is an example where you can’t say they are conclusively way above the competitors in products, but so far they are quite conclusively the most successful car company. Elon Musk’s personal branding played a big role in lowering the marketing cost of the company.

 

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[Timmy C]

The power of building an audience as opposed to building a product seems to have a lot of spotlight lately.

For example, if you have 2M subscribers on YouTube, it would be easy to push them a product right? And not just a great product, but ANY product, right?

Everyone wants a IG following or a YT channel with millions of followers/subscribers so they can sell their influence.

This is not a bad strategy, but I don't believe it is optimal. For starters, Control and Entry, which are non-existent on such platforms. To circumvent Control, you need to get so huge (think: Mr. Beast) that you possess leverage and unprecedented influence.

Second, just because you have a large audience, doesn't mean success is guaranteed. Mr. Beast and Joe Rogan are implicitly implying with their success that if we have millions of fans, monetization, or selling them something is super-simple.

It isn't, because ultimately, selling *something* comes down to a product.

Unique value. Something different.

If you attempt to sell your audience something that does not have perceived value and is seen more of a "money grab," you will be exposed as a fraud, and many in your audience will leave. This also goes for paid influencer promos -- ultimately, the product has to do the heavy lifting.

On the flip side, if you had an awesome product but started with ZERO audience, the speed at which you can get traction is greatly diminished, or worse, impossible, especially if you don't know how to market. The cure for cancer goes unsold if you can't sell it.

Both paths are not for the thin-skinned, or for person who quits easily.

However if I had to make a choice, I'd say that YOUR PRODUCT is by far, the most important.

Good products are viral. And good products sell.

A large audience? That doesn't guarantee success, sales, or traction.

Look below:

View attachment 51011

Another great example right now is Threads, by Meta, which hasn't (yet) seemed to have gained market adoption. Zuckerburg has the largest audience on the planet, and Threads sucks.

Other examples?

Remember Google+?
How about New Coke?

Here's a list of gigantic companies with huge audiences and huge influence who could not succeed because their product simply wasn't good enough.

35 of the biggest failed products from the world's biggest companies

From Nintendo's Virtual Boy to Amazon's Fire phone, even the biggest companies can have major flops. Here are some of the notable disappointments.

www.businessinsider.com

So...

#1) Build a product that everyone wants? And let your product help build the audience?
#2) Or build an audience and plug-in something later?

I'd pick #1 every time.

PS: There is NO right or wrong to this question as like many things, it can be solved in the gray with "It depends."

You need an audience or people to sell to period.

That audience doesn't have to be a social media following per se but you have to have ways for people to find you.

Even your local restaurant has an audience if you think about it. People walk past their shopfronts every day, might see your store, go in, and buy a coffee.

If you build an audience first, you need to make sure the product you sell is relevant to that audience you build, or people that walk past your digital shopfront.

Like you said there is no right or wrong way it depends as both strategies have similar challenges anyway.

Build the product first and then what? That's going to be a long grind trying to get people to even see your product exists. And even if you do make sales, if not enough people walk past your shop to see you are there, you will go broke.

You can build a product, spend months on it and get no sales, have to pivot and spend more money developing/making another product and hope that works.

You can do all the market research in the world, but you don't know how things will go until you attach a price tag to it.

You need to keep both in mind at all times I think.

I don't buy the notion that your product is the audience as others have mentioned here. Granted some products are so good that they sell themselves and get people recommending them to others, but in my own experience and the things I buy every day, I never rave about things, I just buy things I want/need and move on with my life.

If you have a product that does that for you then all power to you, but most people won't have that.

Most people will just offer relative value that is worth the cost people pay, leaving them satisfied enough with the purchase.

 

[Rogic Kachanta]

17-year digital marketing professional here! I would say that both are important, but audience is critical. If you have a well defined audience, you understand a lot of different aspects that will influence your ability to decide on a product and sell it. The audience profile can determine the branding, pricing, naming, marketing strategy, messaging, etc. If you know who your target audience is, you can use that information to make data-informed decisions about what they like, where they live, how they buy, what brand messaging resonates with them, their budgets, lifestyles, socioeconomic status, motivators, their needs, wants, pain points-- the list goes on.

HubSpot has a pretty solid audience persona builder here: Make My Persona - Free Buyer Persona Template Generator (2023) but if you are feeling fancy, you might check out some of Experian's data segments. They released an audience lookbook document a few years back (see attached) that gives some high level audience insights (see page 20) to give you an idea of different audience targets.

This is theory, this is the same as learning to code by going to uni to cram CS degree for 4years instead of practicing coding by building real world projects. You have completely missed everything MJ has said.