Growing Up Too Fast

If you build it, they won't come

While reading an article about a start-up company that had to "pivot" away from the "game changing" app they had been planning to make, there was a sentence from one of their major investors that sums up so much of what is wrong with business thought in the early 21st century.

... it would have to be done in such a way that the restaurants come to you and you don't have to go and sell to them ...

Ignoring the annoying lack of punctuation in that sentence (which is a lot harder than you can imagine), the very hubris of it is glaring.

I don't have to sell. My product/app/jim-crack/gee-gaw will be so blindingly awesome that everyone will want it!

This isn't "Field of Dreams."

If you want to grow a business, you must market that business.

If you want to increase sales, you must sell.

If you want to get noticed, you must advertise.