[terryjsmith]

In my experience this goes hand and hand with getting your messaging right. If you have a product people love then you can work to articulate what they love about it and your marketing efforts become more focused and profitable. I agree that those channels can help develop your message, find early customers, etc. but that's different than investing in growth and trying to make your sales process repeatable; you're still learning at that stage. Investing serious money in marketing before you have the right product and the right messaging is the big mistake that I see a lot of startups run into.