Marketing is always out of syllabus.
Charlie Munger once told this story:
In a rural Texas school, a teacher asked, “If there are nine sheep in a pen and one jumps out, how many are left?”
“Eight!” the class replied.
But one boy raised his hand. “None, ma’am.”
The teacher laughed. “You don’t understand arithmetic.”
The boy said, “No, ma’am. You don’t understand sheep.”
Sheep follow sheep.
People follow people.
Numbers can look perfect on paper, but if you don’t understand human behavior, you’re missing the real math.
Even if you have a one-of-a-kind product, if you don’t understand the psychological forces that drive people to buy, marketing will always feel like an uphill battle.
The first step in marketing is finding the story behind why people do things a certain way. When you think upstream by understanding the deep layers that govern their behavior, you market with leverage, not luck.
But don’t forget: if it’s a physical product, you can’t figure this out after launching—the lesson will be costly. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t test by launching a physical product, but do it small so you can learn without burning resources.
Whether physical or online, you must start with minimal resources to figure out how it works.