The audience does not make the facts though. In practice crummy code + excellent marketing win over excellent code + crummy marketing.
Code is important, but unfortunately - I'm much more of a coder than a marketeer, in fact I have a pretty strong antipathy towards marketing - marketing wins out.
There are a few exceptions to that rule, but not enough to hope that your reincarnation of an IT business is going to be that exception.
Write good code, but please do not forget that if you want to turn a buck that you'll have to spend as much attention to the marketing of your product, if not more.
I find it perfectly ok to talk to people that are interested in my product, and I'm pretty good at it. But I'm allergic to cold calling prospects and pushing my product where no real interest exists.
That is how the big money is made though. So I'm happy with my little niches, I'll probably never be a billionaire, on the other hand my 'startup' has been putting food on the table to the tune of about 50 manyears in the last decade, which is not a bad score for what was essentially a single good idea and a crappy implementation at first.
EDIT: Honestly, I wished it was the other way around, that code really would trump marketing and that all customers were informed about the products they are buying. Unfortunately that is not the case, so if your competitor is selling slickly packaged junk that is of a lesser build quality than your magnus opum and you hope to compete on that you'd better be better in marketing than they are or you will lose.
I agree with most of this and disagree with a little.
You see, I think there is great hope for us. I simply do not fear slick marketing and packaging any more. The world is slowly changing so that prospects are more willing than ever to weigh a proper demo over all the slickness. A proper demo that clearly shows how this offering solves their problem. 30 years of crap and vaporware have produced a slightly more saavy buyer of software. One who is also more willing to try the little guy who didn't have a chance 10 years ago.
Has it changed enough? Not yet. Do we still have to market? Of course. But I think the glass is more half full than half empty. IMO, delivering real solutions to customers' problems is about the best marketing you can do.
I think this little discussion has identified a new niche: Consumer watchdog. Place yourself as a party knowledgeable in the field in between customers and their suppliers during the procurement phase. Since you speak the language of both worlds you should easily be able to save your customer a multiple of the fee you'll charge them.
Naturally this only works on projects that cost a good bit of money but it may help to create some consciousness wrt to lesser purchases as well.
Code is important, but unfortunately - I'm much more of a coder than a marketeer, in fact I have a pretty strong antipathy towards marketing - marketing wins out.
There are a few exceptions to that rule, but not enough to hope that your reincarnation of an IT business is going to be that exception.
Write good code, but please do not forget that if you want to turn a buck that you'll have to spend as much attention to the marketing of your product, if not more.