Everyone remembers the whisper. It’s iconic. Kevin Costner is standing in a cornfield, the wind is rustling the stalks, and this ethereal voice breathes out: "If you build it, he will come."
Wait.
Go back and watch it. The voice doesn't actually say "they." It says "he." It’s a specific reference to his father. But somehow, over the last few decades, that cinematic moment morphed into a global business mantra. Build it and they will come Field of Dreams style became the unofficial slogan for every wide-eyed entrepreneur with a credit card and a dream.
It’s romantic. It’s poetic. It’s also a fantastic way to go broke.
Honestly, the logic is seductive because it removes the hardest part of any venture: the marketing. If the product is "perfect," you shouldn't have to sell it, right? Wrong. In the real world, the cornfield stays empty unless you buy some Facebook ads, optimize your SEO, and actually talk to human beings.
The Myth of Organic Inevitability
Ray Kinsella, the protagonist in the 1989 film, was a guy facing foreclosure. He was literally betting the farm on a supernatural hunch. In Hollywood, the ghosts of baseball legends show up to play ball. In the tech industry or the local retail scene, the only thing that shows up without an invitation is the tax collector.
We’ve seen this play out a thousand times. A founder spends eighteen months in "stealth mode." They polish every pixel. They obsess over the backend architecture. They finally launch their "Field of Dreams" and... crickets. Not even the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson wanders by.
The reality is that Build it and they will come Field of Dreams thinking ignores the sheer noise of the modern world. In 1989, there were three major TV networks and a local newspaper. Today, there are over 1.8 billion websites. You aren't just competing with other businesses; you’re competing with MrBeast, TikTok dances, and the existential dread of an unread inbox.
Why the Movie Lied to Your Marketing Strategy
Movies need a "deus ex machina"—a plot device that solves a hopeless situation. The "they" who eventually come at the end of the film arrive because of magic. They drive a line of cars for miles, headlights glowing in the dusk, to pay a gate fee that saves the farm.
In business, magic isn't a reliable growth lever.
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Take the Segway. Remember that? Before it launched in 2001, it was hyped as the "future of transport." Steve Jobs supposedly said it was as big a deal as the PC. They built it. They built it well. It was a feat of engineering. But they didn't really solve a problem people knew they had, and they certainly didn't account for the fact that people felt like dorks riding them. It was a literal field of dreams that ended up in the "where are they now?" bin of tech history.
Distribution is Actually King (Not Content)
There’s this famous quote by Justin Kan, the guy who started Justin.tv which became Twitch. He said that first-time founders obsess over product, but second-time founders obsess over distribution.
He’s right.
If you have a mediocre product but world-class distribution, you have a business. If you have a world-class product but zero distribution, you have a hobby. A quiet, expensive hobby. The Build it and they will come Field of Dreams philosophy puts 100% of the weight on the product. It assumes the world is a meritocracy where the "best" thing always wins.
It isn't. And it doesn't.
The Betamax vs. VHS Lesson
This is the classic example people always bring up, but it’s still relevant. Betamax was technically superior. Everyone knew it. The picture was better. The hardware was sturdier. But VHS won because they focused on the "they will come" part through aggressive licensing, longer recording times for sports, and—let's be real—the adult film industry.
They didn't just build a box. They built a network. They made sure the "they" had a reason to show up.
When the Field of Dreams Actually Works
Okay, to be fair, there are times when this works. But it’s rare. Usually, it happens when you’re solving a "hair-on-fire" problem.
If someone’s hair is on fire, they don't care if your bucket is pretty. They just want the water. If you build a solution for a desperate, underserved market, people will crawl through glass to find you.
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- Early Craigslist: It was (and is) ugly. It looks like a Geocities page from 1996. But it solved the problem of local commerce so well that people flocked to it.
- The Original iPhone: People stood in line for days. But Apple didn't just "build it" and wait. They spent hundreds of millions on "Hello" commercials and leveraged a decade of iPod brand equity.
- Tesla: They built a great electric car when others were making glorified golf carts. But Elon Musk also built a massive personal brand and a proprietary charging network.
The "build it" part was only 20% of the battle. The other 80% was making sure the world couldn't look away.
The Psychological Trap of Perfectionism
Why do we cling to the Build it and they will come Field of Dreams idea? Honestly, because it’s a great excuse to hide.
Shipping something is terrifying. Putting your work out there and asking for money is an act of vulnerability. If you're "still building," you can't be rejected yet. You can keep tweaking the features and polishing the logo in the safety of your home office.
Marketing feels "dirty" to a lot of creators. They think if the work is good enough, it should speak for itself. That’s pride talking. If you actually care about the people you’re trying to help, you have a moral obligation to make sure they find you.
Breaking the Ghostly Silence: What to Do Instead
If you’re sitting on a field of corn right now wondering where the cars are, you need to change your North Star. You need to stop being Ray Kinsella and start being a promoter.
Validate Before You Excavate
Don't build the whole stadium. Build a pitcher’s mound.
Before you spend $50,000 or two years of your life, see if anyone actually wants what you’re making. This is the "Minimum Viable Product" (MVP) approach. Set up a landing page. Run a $100 ad campaign. If nobody clicks, "building it" won't fix the lack of interest.
Find Where the Crowd is Already Hanging Out
Instead of trying to lure people to your remote cornfield, why not go to the city?
If your target audience is on Reddit, go there. If they’re on LinkedIn, be there. It is much easier to divert an existing stream of traffic than it is to dig a new well and hope for rain.
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The Power of "Done Over Perfect"
The movie is about a guy who achieves a perfect, mystical moment of closure. Business is a series of messy, imperfect experiments. You’re going to launch things that break. You’re going to write blog posts that nobody reads. You’re going to make videos that get three views, and one of them is your mom.
That’s fine.
The goal isn't to build a monument. It’s to build a feedback loop.
Actionable Steps to Get "Them" to Show Up
Stop waiting for the whisper in the wind. Start making some noise yourself.
- Identify your "Who" before your "What." If you don't know exactly whose life gets better because of your "field," don't start digging.
- Spend 50% of your time on creation and 50% on promotion. If you spend eight hours building, spend eight hours telling people about it. This feels wrong to most people, but it’s the only way to survive.
- Build in public. Share the "behind the scenes." Show the mistakes. People don't want to just see the finished stadium; they want to feel like they were there when the first brick was laid.
- Ask for the sale. Don't just hope they find the "Buy" button. Put it in front of them. Tell them why they need it.
The Build it and they will come Field of Dreams mentality is a beautiful sentiment for a movie about fathers and sons and the magic of baseball. It’s a heartfelt story that makes me cry every time Semyon (the ghost) asks, "Is this heaven?"
"No," Ray says. "It's Iowa."
In Iowa, and everywhere else in the real world, you have to do more than just build. You have to shout, you have to hustle, and you have to prove your value every single day. The ghosts aren't coming to save your business. You have to go out and find the living.
Stop polishing the bleachers and go find your first ten customers. Now.
Next Steps for Your Venture:
Audit your current project. If you have spent more than a month "building" without talking to a potential customer, stop. Create a one-page summary of your value proposition and send it to five people in your target demographic today. Their feedback is worth more than a thousand hours of silent labor in a cornfield.
Focus on building a distribution channel as robustly as you build your product. Use social proof, active outreach, and content that solves specific problems to create the "road" that leads people to your door. Success isn't about magic; it's about being impossible to ignore.