𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐲𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭: 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝 $𝟔𝐌 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐞, $𝟏𝟖𝐌 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐭. 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞? Anora won the Oscar this year, making headlines for its low $6M production cost. But here’s the part that matters—they spent $18 million on marketing it. Total cost? $24M. Because even in Hollywood, a great product without exposure doesn’t win. Now, full disclosure—I haven’t watched it. Then again, I’m not their target audience. My tastes lean more toward Star Wars, Star Trek, and Dune. But that’s the point. They knew exactly who to market to, and they spent the money to make sure the right people showed up. I’ve met plenty of startups pitching their latest SaaS or app. When I ask, “How are you going to sell this?” I usually get the same vague response: “We’ll run Google Ads” or “We’ll get influencers.” But when I press for details—who, how much, what the actual strategy is—it’s clear they haven’t thought it through. They’ve spent millions building the product but barely a fraction of that figuring out how to get customers. It’s a common blind spot, especially for engineers and product-focused founders. They assume a great product will sell itself. It won’t. If more businesses treated marketing as an investment instead of an afterthought, we’d see fewer failures. But remember—marketing only works if your product delivers. Negative word-of-mouth spreads faster than positive. So next time someone pitches you an idea, don’t just ask about the product—ask about the marketing plan. Because most businesses don’t fail from a lack of ideas. They fail because no one shows up