Part 1 of The Founder’s Guide to Understanding Marketing
If you’re building an early-stage company, odds are you’re wearing at least five hats. Someone’s running payroll, someone’s chasing invoices, and somewhere in the middle, somebody says, “We should probably do marketing.”
That’s when the scramble starts.
I get it. That’s how startups work. But it’s also why marketing often feels messy. It’s not one clean discipline; it’s a tangle of moving parts that don’t always talk to each other.
Marketing sits between product, customers, and revenue. It connects all three but rarely fits neatly into one box.
If that feels hard to define, think about development. You’ve got front-end, back-end, and full-stack engineers — different languages, different systems, different skill sets. They work together, but each one solves a specific piece of the puzzle.
Marketing is the same way. There’s product marketing (the message and positioning), brand (the trust and awareness), and demand generation (the engine that drives leads). Different muscles, same mission. And if you only hire one “marketer” to do it all, it’s easy to feel like the results never quite match the effort.
If you missed my earlier post breaking down those three pillars, you can find it here.
Small teams move fast. Roles blur. Priorities shift hourly. That’s part of the magic, but also the challenge.
When marketing becomes everyone’s side project, it turns into a grab bag of tactics: a few LinkedIn posts, a flyer, maybe an email blast. Then you look up and wonder why nothing’s really moving the needle.
You’re building product, chasing growth, answering customers, putting out fires. Marketing ends up squeezed in wherever there’s time or whoever’s free.
The problem isn’t disorganization; it’s that marketing needs rhythm. It needs someone watching the long game while you focus on the next milestone.
When you don’t have that, you start testing ideas based on instinct. You double down on what feels right, or pull back too soon when results lag. That’s not bad judgment; it’s just what happens when there’s no one dedicated to steering the strategy.
A good marketer won’t just “do stuff.” They’ll help you step back, set direction, and build a plan you can actually follow. And when you inevitably get pulled into something new — a client crisis, an investor ask, a product pivot — they’ll keep you on course.
Think of it this way: they’re the compass, not the weather vane.
A strong marketing partner (or fractional one) keeps things moving even when your attention can’t. That’s the point — to give you space to be the founder, not the entire department.
In the next few posts, I’ll share three common marketing mindsets I see in early-stage companies:
Each has strengths and blind spots. The key is knowing which one you are, and building your marketing support around it. Bookmark this guide, and we’ll start decoding those mindsets next.
Because every founder deserves a compass, not a weather vane.
From positioning and messaging to go-to-market planning and voice-of-customer strategy, I help early-stage teams connect with buyers, stand out in-market, and move faster with confidence.