Reducing success to "marketing" is too trivializing and narrow. Marketing's a big part of it, sure, but the how of marketing matters a lot more than the why. Especially at the early stage, when marketing budgets are wafer thin.<p>If there's any single variable that seems to be best correlated with early-stage success, it isn't "marketing" so much as "hustle." How many different ways can you think of to get the word out about your product? How many people can you get yourself in front of, and in which novel situations? How can you inspire better-connected, deeper-pocketed, and more influential people to evangelize on your behalf?<p>I've got two friends right now running startups. The first started out in investment banking, so he's got a big ol' warchest. The second started out in relatively modest circumstances -- but she's somehow managed to weasel her way (I say "weasel" lovingly, as a compliment) into blogs, journals, conferences, Entrepreneur magazine, lectures at our alma mater, and so forth. More important, she's actually built something and is actively acquiring users, one small batch at a time.<p>I'd bank on her over the first guy any day of the week, and I'd have banked on her even before she started getting all her press and attention. We've all heard the old cliche about not taking no for an answer. In her case, the cliche isn't nearly sufficient. I'm pretty sure she's pathologically <i>incapable</i> of understanding the word no.<p>I say this with a lot of respect for your honesty, integrity, and bravery in putting yourself out there. But if you're the type who's constantly starting and stopping projects -- who seems to put up imaginary barriers before he even encounters real ones -- then you need to think very carefully about whether you should be a founder. Joining an existing startup? Sure. But being a founder? You need grit, hustle, balls, and borderline fanaticism. You also need an ability to break a bigger picture down into smaller, bite-sized chunks, and to tackle those chunks systematically. Most people look at the set of all activities called "marketing" as a single lump of work. Founders look at "marketing" and see 2,500 discrete activities they need to perform every month.