How to Market Infra Products When Nobody Cares (Yet)

Technical founders face a brutal marketing paradox: the more essential your infrastructure, the less visible it becomes. Consumer apps showcase flashy UIs. DeFi protocols advertise wild APYs. But how do you market the pipes and plumbing of the digital economy?

In our most recent minicast, we spoke with the CMO of Redstone Oracles about challenging an established monopoly. Their approach offers valuable lessons for any founder marketing technical infrastructure.

🧠 THE VISIBILITY CHALLENGE

The Invisible Product Problem 

Infrastructure marketing sucks. It's "not as sexy as thousand percent yields." Your product works best when users don't even know it exists.

You're not just competing against rivals. You're fighting ignorance. Most users don't understand how infrastructure works - they just want it to function seamlessly in the background.

Creating the Discourse 

Don't start with differentiation. Start by creating the entire discourse. Establish the vocabulary that naturally positions your product as superior.

Successful infrastructure projects don't just educate about their category - they define what makes "good" infrastructure in terms that favour their approach. Control the language, control the market.

Making the Technical Tangible 

Turn abstract technology into concrete benefits. Polygon didn't sell "optimistic rollups" - they sold "Ethereum without the gas fees." Celestia didn't market "data availability sampling" - they marketed "unlimited scaling."

Growth learning: Translate your technical advantage into immediate user benefits. No one cares about your architecture. Everyone cares about what it enables.

💸 THE DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY

The 80/20 Rule of Channel Focus 

When it comes to technical marketing, ruthless channel prioritisation wins.

While startups waste time debating platforms (newsletter? Instagram? Discord?), successful infrastructure teams double down on 1-2 channels where their users actually live. In web3, that's typically "80% Twitter, 20% events."

For developer tools, it might be GitHub and StackOverflow. For enterprise infrastructure, it could be LinkedIn and industry conferences.

Being Seen Everywhere That Matters 

The most important thing? "Being seen as often as possible" where your users actually spend their time. Consistency trumps creativity.

The founder Redstone is known for wearing the same branded puffer vest at every conference. Their stickers appear on every laptop. Their memes circulate in every chat.

Growth learning: Don't try to be everywhere. Be omnipresent in the 1-2 places that matter most to your target users.

The Founder as Face 

Technical founders must be the narrative owners. The best CMOs act as campaign managers, not replacements.

Look at Vitalik Buterin, Sandeep Nailwal, and Jesse Pollak - leaders who embody their projects through active Twitter presences. Their marketing teams amplify their voice rather than trying to create a separate brand identity.

Growth learning: CMOs should help founders shine, not replace them. The founder's authentic technical credibility is your strongest marketing asset.

If you need help becoming a thought leader through Founder-Led Marketing, click here.

👥 THE COMMUNITY BUILDING ENGINE

Building Without a Product 

Pre-launch projects face a unique challenge: how do you build community when there's nothing to use yet?

The most successful technical products create participation mechanisms beyond usage. Redstone built an "expedition" program with gamified roles. Ethereum created a research community years before launch.

Contribution Over Speculation 

Speculation creates brittle communities. By building engagement mechanisms that reward participation and intellectual contribution, you create resilience.

When your community is built on shared interest in the problem space, it survives the inevitable bumps in development. When it's built on token price go up, it collapses at the first correction.

Meaningful Engagement Mechanics 

Create point systems with transparent leaderboards that reward behaviour you want to see more of. The key is making the incentives public and competitive.

Smart contracts enable new forms of proof-of-contribution that weren't possible before. Use them to create tangible records of participation that go beyond Discord roles.

Growth learning: Design engagement systems that reward the behaviours that create actual value for your ecosystem, not just promotion.

Want to be a guest on Growth Stories Minicast?

🔮 THE FUTURE PLAYBOOK

Action Plan for Technical Founders 

If you're marketing technical infrastructure, here's what to do:

1. Create the discourse - Establish the vocabulary that naturally positions you favourably

2. Find your wedge - Target specific use cases where you have structural advantages

3. Focus distribution - 80% on your customers' primary channel, 20% on in-person events

4. Clarify roles - Founders own the narrative; marketing teams help founders shine

5. Build contribution-based community - Create engagement beyond usage

6. Track metrics that matter - Focus on measures showing your actual value creation

Trends in Infrastructure Marketing 

The most successful infra projects are shifting from marketing features to marketing ecosystems. They're creating platforms that others can build on, then showcasing the innovation happening in their ecosystem.

This "platform as marketing" approach creates a virtuous cycle where builders bring users who attract more builders.

What Sets Winners Apart 

The most powerful insight? You can successfully market deep tech without resorting to hype.

By focusing on education, specific use cases, community building, and meaningful metrics, technical founders can challenge established incumbents. In infrastructure, superior marketing often wins alongside superior technology.

The projects that will dominate the next cycle aren't those with the flashiest marketing - they're those that solve real problems with elegant technical solutions, then communicate that value clearly to the right audience.

P.S. Which of these strategies are you implementing for your deep tech product? Hit reply and let us know - we read every response!

Penned by Alex and Laura