Chris Lema had an interesting post this week on the power of networking, especially for product developers. Since i’ve recently annouced I will be quitting my former company Chef du Web in favor of a mix of freelancing (with an hours-a-week cap) and product development, the title sang to me like a siren. Also; knowing Chris, his blogs and his talks, I knew it was going to be a good one.

The big issue for me

I love programming and creating products. I’ve loved it since I started in this business and I have, since then, been trying to release products. Some succesful -in that they were actually released, not in that they made a lot of money- and others crashed and burned.

I’ve always had this idea that great products sell themselves and I love quoting John Lasseter (Creative director at Pixar) on this:

“Quality is the best marketing strategy” - John Lasseter

While I still believe this to be true, Chris’ story finally made something click in me. I though clients would come automatically when they heard the product was good. But they first need to hear that a product is good. From multiple trustworthy sources. And they only way to get to that point is to build up your network slowly and steadily with actual interest in other people. So don’t be surprised if you catch me more at meetups, WordCamps and other conferences.

Also: go ahead and read Chris’ post on the power of networking and don’t be surprised if you come out the other end with tons of new ideas for products and ways to market them.