For 826 and three-quarter days
We developed our product, we labored away.
After months of testing, and tweaking we were ready to say, our one-of-a-kind tech gadget app was going to market today!

The staff arrived early, the anticipation swirling
We flung open the door on our eCommerce store and waited for clients to come purchase what we were sure they'd never had before.
They'd pay us a premium to get the first crack at our one-of-a-kind tech gadget app.

Silence.

Hour by hour, minute by minute, we waited.
As we monitored traffic it was more of the same - we built a great product but nobody came!

Panicked we huddled around the conference room.
Tragic!

How could this be? 826 and three-quarter days spent toiling, laboring working away. We did what the books told us, our product is tight, the experts and bloggers said we'd be a success overnight.

Ideas, we need them quick. We need to do something or else our one-of-a-kind tech gadget app will end up in an Inc. column titled "Learn from them; Don't do that!".

"Investors."
  "More money."
   "Advertising."
     "Influencers."

"Ideas" were pitched round and round we went. Nothing was new, it was more of the same. Different day, the same game.

I looked 'round bewildered and thought 'this is the end' a failure before launching, I suppose this is the trend. Just then I spotted an intern's nose buried deep in her phone. Apparently missing the ominous tone. How has she not noticed our panicked state? Should I interrupt her...

Interrupt? Wait, that's it! Interrupting is what we'd been trying so far. If we want to gain customers we must meet them where they are.

I swiveled around and looked my team square in the eye. We must be Adaptive if we want to survive. We'll fix this. We must!
or else our one-of-a-kind tech gadget app, our time, our passion will be squandered away and that will be that.

Inbound Marketing seemed to be the way to go. A mixture of blogging, social, email, and listening.
Conversing and solving problems. Not big budgets, coercing and self-promotion.

A quick Google search led me straight to the best. I contacted HubSpot and they filled in the rest.
It all starts with a website that's geared towards your users. Content is king! But you have to be smart when you use it. 

Minute by minute, nugget by nugget, we developed a strategy...

The last bit of advice that the channel rep told me, there is no quick fix, and that this is a process.
Sometimes you'll get discouraged or wonder if this is working. Keep an eye on your metrics, trust in your ideas. 
And soon your one-of-a-kind tech gadget app, the product you thought your customers could not resist, will find its way onto the Inc 500 list.

* This post originally appeared on LinkedIn Pulse, by Patrick Sitkins.