[dkokelley]

An analogy to this guide's strategy:

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

Which parallels YC's golden rule:

Make something people want.

In general, I agree with both of the statements as solid business advice. After all, nothing kills a bad product faster than good marketing. Make a good product first, and then market it.

Although I do have to slightly disagree on one point. If you've built a better mousetrap, or made something people want, how do you let them know? The general strategy seems to be "let the product speak for itself." The same advice is prescribed in the article: write good content and let it speak for itself.

Well, good content is critical, I agree. Gunning for rankings on crap content is a sure way to fail. But it's lazy to leave it at that. You must let people know that your content is there to link to. Post it to newsboards and forums. Gather a following on Twitter and let them know. Market it. The real gem from the article is that the difficulty of the sale and the quality of the content are inversely related. Make quality content and the sale will be easier... but you still have to sell.