I don't think I read the same article. If anything I would say that the article was not well written enough (!) - you got the wrong end of the stick so it did not put its point across for you.

I would precis it as

1. Realised something is bugging him (Website does not integrate with email tool) and knew he could code something up to fix it.

2. Before coding something to fix it, checks if there is a decent market (if email tool == free mailchimp, no; if email tool = thousands per year infusionsoft, yes)

3. Spec'd out a Facebook Adwords (or whatever its called) campaign to target only people who had `liked` infusionsoft. (basically used infusionsoft as a keyword). Probably that techie stuff is cheaper on FB than google.

4. Advertised a (non-existent but easy to write) series of emails that would basically "qualify" people - that is if you read all the email course you clearly wanted the damn solution.

5. Wrote course, collected emails, and now after getting
a handful of real leads, wrote the product that did, oh who cares, it probably tags email addresses with "stage1" "stage2" etc. The important part is not what code he wrote but that he had got a market first.

6. tell the list he has the product, get some feedback, refine, persuade, and sell... (more here but hell, zero to one is important)

The only slightly scammy here is 4. to whit "qualifying" customers. Thats the point of these long sales pages and in many cases these email courses, its to ensure by the time someone reaches the end then they are really interested in the thing you have been talking about.

But its not spammy if its a real product that does a real thing that someone who really wants it will pay for. Its spammy if Brennan does not stop mailing people who don't want it. For example I have had over half a dozen automated calls today asking about PPI (if you are in the UK you will know). It should be obvious that I don't want it from the speed of the hang up. But they won't stop.

So this thing Brennan is doing is called "Audience Development". And if you think its spammy, well, maybe, but the New York Times just leaked its digital strategy and that boils down to "audience development".

In the end Brennan just said "find the market first, find someone willing to give you cash for a product".

I am personally refreshing all my old blog posts and how-tos and was going to stick them out there, blogs and email courses etc. Not because I have a pain point in mind (well, being me is a pain point), but because I want to try this whole thing out.

(Disclaimer, I'm occassionally on bdunn's community google group)

Edit:

There is nothing stopping this article being rewritten and titled "What Open Source Developers could learn from "white-hat-internet-marketers". I have a couple of OSS products I like and am occassionally proud of - I could, in fact hell, I will, launch a similar email course aimed at people who have the same problems as drove me to solve them, then they can pick it up and use it. Its the same techniques, the same professional approach, just F/OSS.

However, I need to realise I have missed out stages 1-2 which is finding who will buy the product (download and use the OSS code) - luckily they are basically me and people like me and I know where I hang out.