I talked with a technical founder today who never got revenue traction in his startup, but he was able to sell his technology to a bigger software business that wanted the platform he built.

I asked him what he’d do differently next time.

Here’s what he said:

“For every dollar spent on development, I’d spend at least twice that on marketing.

I totally underestimated what it would take to get customers and revenue.”

He would double the marketing investment again if he built a two-sided marketplace, since there are two sets of customers to market to and create active users.

Building software is always hard, but it’s not the hardest part of growing a valuable software company.

The harder part for 90% of software startups is effective sales and marketing that drives customers, revenues, and growth.