It's not overstretching to have great marketing from the outset; it's almost mandatory. Tofu marketing from the get-go (especially on launch day) is a great way to nudge the company into the deadpool. If their financial limits proscribe marketing, their company will be gone and forgotten soon enough when their sales are lackluster and insufficient.
Companies, new and established, just can't afford to be conservative when it comes convincing people to give them money. Bad marketing = bad sales.
> It's not overstretching to have great marketing from the outset
Your general logic seems to circle around expecting massive sales and huge production mindset (where investment has to be compensated with millions of sales). Jolla has modest expectations for the starting stage, so massive marketing would be an overstretch. But it shouldn't be abysmal either, I agree.
No, it doesn't. My mindset in this case revolves around one thing: convincing people they should buy. Their sales and marketing, from what I've observed today, is so poor it fails to do the only thing it should: sell.
I never said they should grow unsustainably and run out of cash, but my money is on them running out of cash anyway because their marketing is so poor it'll fail to drive the sales they need to keep the lights on. Frankly, supply shortages would be the best thing that could happen to them because scarcity drives demand and perceived value.
Exactly, keeping the early adopters happy and getting them to advertise their product for them is much more important. And regarding that: even the otherwise sceptical review by The Verge praised their interaction with the people who bought a Jolla.
Companies, new and established, just can't afford to be conservative when it comes convincing people to give them money. Bad marketing = bad sales.