dangerouslyawesome

I'm Alex Hillman, the co-founder of IndyHall and a guy who makes things better in Sunny Philadelphia.

I work on Beanstalk, Postmark, and DynamicWear.

I think technology is cool, but people are infinitely cooler.

The 4 Corners of What's Broken with Paid Product Evangelism

• Companies that need it the most think they can’t afford a good evanglist
• Companies who can afford evangelists ultimately don’t benefit from it on the scale of their expectations, or don’t hire with the right criteria
• People who charge exorbitantly for evangelism aren’t any good at it
• People who are qualified candidates for evangelizing aren’t meeting the companies that need them

There’s no specific, single point of failure here, but ultimately there IS a massive mismatch problem.

Companies pursuing this venue to augment your existing market strategy: consider carefully who you are hiring. Do they carry enough whuffie to be worth your dollar? Do they even understand how whuffie works?

Individuals interested in product evangelism: being a paid megaphone is different from being an evangelist. And asking questions of the users isn’t quite enough, either. Processing feedback is hard. Be prepared for that. And assuming you are worth your weight in whuffie: don’t spend it all in one place.