Dave McClure says Silicon Valley is ‘functionally illiterate’ at marketing

Dave McClure

Dave McClure

We here at Ventureburn think marketing is really important when it comes to thinking about your overall startup strategy. It’s better to start thinking about it sooner rather than later. It turns out we are not alone. In a series of tweets that appear to have been sent out of frustration, prominent Silicon Valley VC, Dave McClure let it all rip on what he thinks of marketing in the startup space. Hint: he is not impressed.

McClure is the founder of popular seed accelerator 500 Startups, which has invested in more than 300 companies, including Markerly, idreambooks, myGengo, Artsicle, Visual.ly, E la Carte, Canva and Udemy.

Today the super angel took to Twitter to express some frustrations around the lack of emphasis placed on marketing by startups. He takes issue with the fact that “most startups and investors are bad at marketing” stating that it is one of the areas that Silicon Valley could improve on.

He argues that it is “laughable” the Valley is considered a “Mecca for startups, given how functionally illiterate” it is at marketing. He notes that the marketing skills needed aren’t the traditional ones but the that are “critically joined @ hip 2 product development & usability”.

The investor also reckons that startups could do well to pay some serious attention to usability and customer interaction. He says that an inability to scale customer acquisition is what ultimately lead to the much talked about Series A Crunch.

See McClure’s 11 tweet tirade on startups and investors lack of marketing mindset below:

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