You're managing marketing yourself or with an agency. You're shipping product. You're getting traction. But marketing is slipping. You're wondering if you need to hire someone full-time. You don't know what role actually solves your problem.
Built for founders at the inflection point between doing it all and building a team. Applies to anyone who has outgrown solo marketing but hasn't yet built a marketing department. You need clarity on what role actually matters.
Get a Hiring Strategy →Most first marketing hires fail because the role isn't clear. You hire a generalist but need a paid ads specialist. Or you hire a content person but need someone who can manage demand gen. Clarity on bottleneck comes first. Role design follows. A strategic intervention maps your growth bottleneck and tells you exactly who to hire.
Most founders avoid hiring because they're not sure what the role is. Is it customer acquisition? Brand building? Content production? Sales support? The answer determines everything. You hire the wrong person, they fail, and you blame marketing when you really blamed bad specification. Strategic clarity on your bottleneck comes before a job posting.
Wrong hire at the wrong stage costs you money, time, and momentum. You're paying $80K-$150K annually for someone who doesn't solve your problem. You could have used an agency or fractional resource for half the cost while you figured out what you actually need. The cost of bad specification is brutal. The cost of clarity is cheap.
One: Exactly what marketing problem you need to solve. Two: The role that solves it. Three: The profile of person to hire. Four: What success looks like in month one, month three, and month six. You'll have a job description that actually attracts the right person. And a hiring manager profile. And a 90-day onboarding plan.
You walk us through your current marketing output, your growth metrics, and where you're bottlenecked. We analyze the gap. We tell you what marketing person solves it. We give you a hiring profile and a candidate scorecard. Cost is $5,000 to $15,000. Timeline is two to three weeks. You'll move from uncertainty to clarity before you write a single job posting.
Depends on your stage. At seed, hire a generalist who can do content, paid ads, and customer calls. They don't need deep expertise in one channel. At Series A, hire a marketer who owns a full funnel or full channel. At Series B, hire specialists. Your first hire should be scrappy and broad. Your second hire can be deep.
Stop writing job descriptions. Write a problem statement. Tell candidates: We are $X revenue growing at Y rate. Our bottleneck is customer acquisition from Z channel. We need someone to take ownership of that channel and own the metrics. Do you want this problem? Candidates who say yes are self-selecting for ownership and clarity. That's your hire.
Don't expect them to do all marketing. You'll still do some. A founder does founder marketing even after hiring. Your first marketing hire owns execution on one channel or one funnel stage. You maintain relationships and position. They build the channel. Clear scope keeps everyone happy.
Most marketing hire failures are specification failures, not person failures. You didn't define the role clearly. You didn't agree on metrics. You didn't decide if it's a paid ads role or a content role or a community role. Clarity up front prevents bad hires. A strategic intervention helps you define exactly what you need before you hire.
Depends on timeline. A hired marketer takes 3-6 months to onboard and show results. An agency starts showing value in weeks. But a hired marketer compounds. An agency bills per month. At 12 months, the hired marketer is cheaper. At 24 months, they're much cheaper. The question is whether you can afford the first six months of low output.
Strategic Intervention · $5,000–$15,000 · Clear hiring profile and candidate scorecard in 2-3 weeks. Know exactly who to find and what success looks like.
Request Intervention →