"No, these days even technical execution is mostly trivial (with a few exceptions for apps built around unique algorithms). Far more important is marketing execution."
He's a smart cookie, and for the types of applications he sells and suggests writing, he is absolutely right. CRUD apps have minimal execution risk. Any programmer on HN who has shipped software could write BCC, bar none. Maybe it takes a weekend, maybe a month, maybe the UI is prettier or uglier, but you cannot fail at bingo cards. You cannot fail at invoicing software, or scheduling software, etc etc. You can certainly fail to successfully sell a single copy.
I can think of rather more companies who failed because there was no market for their products than companies who failed because while there was a market the product didn't work. Indeed I have been involved in spending tens of millions of investors money learning this fact during the Dot Com years.
If people really need your product then they will excuse it being a bit crap (Exhibit A: most enterprise software). However, if your product is a work of technical genius but doesn't do anything useful for anyone then it is surely doomed.
I think in the context of "which is harder, building the product or building the market?" most programmers will admit that the coding is (almost) trivially easy compared to actually getting users. Perhaps trivial is too harsh a word but I understand what he means.
He's right. How many people have failed to launch a product because they couldn't figure out how to do it? How many have failed because nobody wanted it? You can buy technical execution with little risk. Not so for marketing execution.
Why? He's pretty much correct unless you are taking the statement hyper-literally.
Few web applications are technological breakthroughs. You can find exceptions in things like Google maps and such, but for the rest of the startup scene, it is all about the execution and the marketing.
Can someone please smack this idiot?