As a developer-founder, I feel lost when it comes to marketing/GTM

I'm a developer-founder who has always felt at home with code but completely lost when it comes to marketing. I can architect systems, ship features fast, and debug anything. But ask me to promote my product, write copy, or get users from the real world and suddenly I am stuck.

For years, this was my pattern:

Code with excitement -> ship -> hope users show up -> they do not -> loose interest -> go back to coding something new (with excitement ).

I have realized I'm comfortable building but completely lost when it comes to marketing and GTM.

I've been a Yongfook fan; so I revisited his doing 50 percent coding and 50 percent marketing, and it hit me hard. As solo or technical founders, we treat marketing like a side quest. But it is actually the other half of the business.

So I am forcing myself into a new routine:

1 week of building, then 1 week of marketing. No skipping. No excuses.

I am applying this to my current project, UTMGuard, a tool that scans GA4 and finds broken UTM parameters that mess up attribution.

Here is what I am doing during “marketing weeks”, even though most of it is uncomfortable for me:

• Reddit outreach: Trying to attract early backers and talk to strangers about GA4, UTMs, attribution problems, and real pain points.

• SEO: programmatic + on-page: Knowledgebase and blogs

• Off-page listings: Submitting to directories, product listing sites, marketing tool collections.

I've to be honest, and this first week of marketing feels slow, awkward and on loose ground. But for the first time, I feel like I am building the “marketing muscle” instead of hiding behind code.

If you are a technical founder who struggles with marketing, I would love to hear what has worked for you, what routines you follow, and how you stay accountable.