I went through a similar thing in my first few trips to the Bay area, and ultimately decided to not move there for the same reasons.
I've found subsequent trips to be much easier. Unfortunately, the most vocal and easiest to meet within the community were the most abrasive / kool aid driven. Keep digging.
Every time I mention this on HN, at least 15 people upvote it - which means they didn't know about it. So I feel obliged to repeat it again and again (as I usually use this method a few times a week and it's tremendously useful for me):
If you want to get Google's cached version of a webpage, just type
tl;dr: most feedback on twitter ads assume it is intent driven (i.e. google adwords), when in most cases it is not.
IMO, it's the root of many social companies struggle to monetize with ads. We've been spoiled the last while because we knew what people were looking for, and could promote directly against that. In some ways, social ads are a step backwards from this.
I agree. In some ways social ads are a step back from that, but only because you establish contact with your customers much before they have needs that you can satisfy. So the time to first sale is a lot longer.
But I think, on the flip side, the relationships you develop with them are a lot stronger and a lot more powerful. The problem is, it's very hard to back that up empirically because it's a lot more complicated than just measuring CTR.
This is why Facebook's new retargeting is pretty exciting (disclaimer, I'm a cofounder of a company in the space, http://perfectaudience.com)
Facebook has/had the same issue: huge audience and targeting that just didn't capture intent. By opening up inventory to folks that have that intent data, retargeting companies, Facebook's able to "sell umbrellas to people in the rain" to use the lingo of OP.
It's going to make a big difference for them in the longrun and we anticipate Twitter doing something similar in the near future.
The 4 and 7 has been an ongoing debate among marketing academics, it seems. I recall the "right" answer alternating course by course through school, pending the professors interest.
If I recall, the 4 P's are the standard marketing mix, with the 7 P's being called the extended marketing mix. FWIW, the 4 was definitely more central at my school.
On top of this, once the coding starts, too many languages focus on command / effect (note: not cause / effect). This is arguably fine for basic looping and data structures.
The problem is I see this knowledge break when 1) it is applied to a more difficult problem that 2) is outside of the scope of the provided loop.
Spending time understanding the conceptual elements (when, where, why) before the how doesn't give immediate results, but it saves many headaches down the road and makes future tools / languages much easier to learn.
I think you make some valid points, and as somebody who self-taught, I get the pain. That being said, I also agree with the common sentiment here "help yourself a little first".
If you consider yourself a technology company, you need an understanding of your technology and what goes into making it. You may not be a master at each part, but you need _something_. It doesn't mean you are not marketing, but like marketing a technology implementation has several nuances that can't be overlooked. Tension always arises when these aren't well understood. Times this problem by 10 if you want "magic" / algorithms which little concept of how they will work (note: you don't need computing studies to figure this out, generally).
Note that I said 'consider yourself a technology company'. There are many companies based on technology that are not, themselves, technology companies (you can argue either way whether this is the right model, but it works). From my experience, these are the companies hunting less for technical co-founders (and who have less excuse for no traction pre product).
I'm unsure the perception of B2B among VC's is as bad as commonly thought.
My last startup was pure B2B, and during our valley runs I found most potential partners / vc's / workers were very excited (in part because of the opportunity, in part because of perceived market movements, and in part because B2B can be fun) at the prospect of growing in B2B.
B2B companies may not spawn a media darling, but it doesn't make the business itself unsexy.
The problem with B2B is that it doesn't follow the standard startup model.
In B2C, if you have 10,000 users, VCs will just start to look at you. In B2B, except in some specific instances, if you have 10,000 users you're already a million dollar company.
Thus, in B2C the risk/reward inflection point occurs much later chronologically than in B2B, and for a B2B business, I, personally, think that there is far too much ambiguity before that inflection point.
I'm unsure this is true anymore. If you know how to play B2B (the same lies true for B2C), it's entirely plausible to get the first 1-5 deals pre-build (I did).
If you consider that equal to the first traction burst in B2C, then I'd argue that the ambiguity for B2C is just as large, if not larger, in the early days.
It is my no means an overall risk / reward inflection point (and if you are referring to 'this company is guaranteed to exit' I agree), but as an early 'this might have something' B2B can validate fast.
> The problem with B2B is that it doesn't follow the standard startup model
Is there even such a thing? Anyway, it's not that VCs don't fund B2B startups... they absolutely do, and there are even firms that specialize in that space (or at least have a heavy focus on it). A16Z, for example, are known for investing heavily into enterprise plays:
I'm an Australian who has been in Canada since 2009. The current iteration of the startup visa has some odd restrictions on Canadian capital imo.
You are generally better doing WHP to FSW
Disclaimer: ianal