HN is full of solutions that answer no real world problems (X written in Go; new framework to do Y; ...) Useless engineering and sleazy marketing go hand in hand.
Marketing gets bad rep all of the time, but I think that is because often marketing is done (like you said) after one has something to sell. For me the order should be inverted:
1. Find a real world problem and identify potential customers (marketing)
2. Create an original solution that actually helps solve it (engineering)
3. Loops from marketing to engineering to improve the product
If you are pondering what should you that could actually sell you are doing marketing.
Marketing gets bad rep all of the time, but I think that is because often marketing is done (like you said) after one has something to sell. For me the order should be inverted:
1. Find a real world problem and identify potential customers (marketing) 2. Create an original solution that actually helps solve it (engineering) 3. Loops from marketing to engineering to improve the product
If you are pondering what should you that could actually sell you are doing marketing.