"…spend the majority of your time getting to know your early users."

Sean Ellis

In this insightful article entitled "Indifference is Your Real Competitor".

I just stumbled upon the Startup Marketing Blog this week.  It so loaded with excellent content that it immediately made its way to my blog roll sidebar.  Sean coined a term that captures something that I have always believed and practiced, "metrics driven customer development."  Marketing is much more about math and metrics than creativity.    I am a big believer in metrics driven marketing.  Basically applying measurement to every facet of marketing in the same way you would sales or operations. 

But more to the point of the quote, I can not tell you how many times I have asked an entrepreneur what a customer or potential customer thinks about their product offering only to receive back a blank stare. 

Launch something, get somebody to use it, and engage them to improve until you have something that a lot of people want.