Build a marketing foundation that scales—before you hand off the reins.
Early-stage founders often ask: “When should I hire my first marketer?”
The better question is: "What needs to be true before I hire one?"
In the earliest stages of a B2B SaaS company, marketing isn’t just execution—it’s insight, framing, and iteration. And no one is better positioned to shape that than the founder.
If you're not convinced founder-led marketing matters - or if you've stepped away and it's backfiring - read this first: Why Founder-Led Marketing Is the Edge Most Startups Waste
Hiring a marketer too early—or without the right foundation—leads to vague messaging, channel confusion, and burned runway.
This playbook walks you through what you, as the founder, need to establish first.
Before anyone writes a headline or launches a campaign, you need a firm grip on:
Target Customer: Who you’re for—and who you’re not.
Category: What space you want to be placed in.
Competitive Alternatives: What you’re replacing (spreadsheets, manual processes, status quo).
Value Proposition: What specific outcome you help customers achieve—and how it’s different from others.
Tip: Write 3 variations of your value prop and test them in early sales or outreach calls. Pay attention to what lands and what gets silence.
Start building a real-world map of your ICP (ideal customer profile). At minimum, document:
Common job titles and roles
Urgent problems they’re trying to solve
Language they use to describe those problems
Current workflows or tools they rely on
Emotional drivers behind their decisions
Tip: Use transcripts from early sales calls, onboarding interviews, and churn feedback to gather this intel. Don’t rely on assumptions.
Don’t wait for a marketer to figure this out for you. As the founder, you should:
Identify which channels show early signal (cold outbound, referrals, organic, etc.)
Create or co-create your first outreach templates or landing page copy
Track the journey from first touch to closed deal—even manually
Note what’s resonating and where drop-off occurs
Tip: Even a basic Airtable or Notion tracker can help you identify early patterns that inform future GTM investments.
You don’t need a full content strategy yet—but you do need a clear point of view.
Write down:
The core problem your company is built to solve
Why that problem exists today
Why the current solutions fall short
What the world looks like with your product in it
Tip: Turn that POV into a short founder’s note or LinkedIn post. If you can’t clearly articulate the "why now" and "why us," no one else can either.
Give your future marketing hire or contractor a fighting chance.
Create a simple doc with:
3–5 messaging pillars
A one-liner you want to test
Common objections and how you answer them
Short customer stories or quotes
Approved tone-of-voice guidelines (formal? challenger? friendly?)
Tip: Treat this as a WIP. Even a rough V1 makes onboarding dramatically easier.
Once the above is in place, you’re ready to bring on a marketer who can:
Operationalize and scale what’s working
Test and expand to new channels
Build systems, automation, and repeatable processes
Own campaign planning and lead generation
Translate your insights into scalable assets
Hiring before this is done?
You're asking someone to lead without a compass - and wasting time and budget in the process.
Founder-led marketing doesn’t mean doing it all forever.
It means staying close enough to the story so others can scale it correctly.
Lay the foundation first—then hire someone to build on it.
Need help codifying your narrative before hiring your first marketer?
I help B2B SaaS founders sharpen positioning, messaging, and GTM strategy so marketing hires succeed faster. Let's talk.