Startup founders might be a bit anxious about making their first marketing hire, either a junior marketer or a head of marketing. Here are the most common choices they make with some reasoning to support why they tend to make these choices. It’s a tough decision!
Choice: 1 Hire a Junior Marketer
Most startup founders tend to hire a junior marketer as their first marketing hire. This is often driven by budget constraints. Startups have limited resources and cannot afford to hire a senior marketer or a full-fledged marketing team right away. Founders may believe that a junior marketer, with some guidance, can handle the execution of basic marketing tasks like social media management, content creation, and email marketing, allowing them to cover a broad range of marketing activities at a lower cost.
Why They Make This Choice:
• Cost Efficiency: Junior marketers command lower salaries, making them an obvious, if not limited option for early-stage startups.
• Operational Need: Founders often need someone to handle day-to-day marketing tasks and believe that a junior marketer can grow into the role over time. The problem is that these roles can easily stray away from marketing activities and turn into general executive admin roles. This is because the junior marketer can handle a lot of different low-level tasks and doesn’t excel in any of them, making them an easy option to take on any unspecialized task that needs to be completed.
• Flexibility: Junior marketers are often more adaptable and willing to take on a variety of tasks, making them a versatile choice for startups with ever-changing needs.
What is the typical lifespan of a marketer hired into this role?
The typical lifespan of a marketer in their first marketing role at a startup can be relatively short, often ranging from 6 to 12 months. This is due to a variety of factors, including the steep learning curve, the pressure of wearing many hats, and the evolving needs of the startup. Many junior marketers either grow out of the role as they gain experience and seek higher-level positions elsewhere, or they struggle to meet the startup’s rapidly changing demands and leave the company.
How do first-time growth marketers fail when hired into the first marketing role at startups?
First-time growth marketers often fail in startup environments due to a lack of experience in handling the broad and strategic aspects of marketing. Common pitfalls include:
• Overemphasis on Tactics Over Strategy: Junior marketers may focus too much on executing specific tactics (e.g., social media posts, email campaigns) without understanding the broader strategy needed to drive sustainable growth.
• Inability to Prioritize: With limited experience, they may struggle to identify which marketing activities will have the greatest impact, leading to wasted time and resources on low-value tasks.
• They Don’t Understand the Funnel: Without deep experience, they may not fully grasp the strategic funnel metrics, let alone have created the funnel in the first place. Knowing the startup’s target audience or how to craft messaging that resonates also leads to ineffective campaigns.
Why are burnt-out enterprise employees not a good fit for startup roles?
Burnt-out enterprise employees often struggle in startup environments because the skills and mindset required in a large, structured organization differ significantly from those needed in a fast-paced, uncertain startup. Reasons include:
• Lack of Agility: Enterprise roles often involve specific, specialized, and narrowly defined tasks, while startups require employees to be highly adaptable and capable of handling multiple roles and responsibilities.
• Comfort with Structure: Enterprise employees are used to working within established processes and systems. In contrast, startups often lack such structures, requiring employees to thrive in ambiguity and create processes from scratch. In short, it’s very “grey” in a startup.
• Misaligned Expectations: Burnt-out employees may be seeking a slower pace or more stability, which contrasts sharply with the high-energy, fast-moving environment of a startup.
What are the typical failure points of a marketer in a first marketing role at a startup?
Typical failure points include:
• Inability to Scale Marketing Efforts: As the startup grows, marketing needs to scale rapidly. A junior marketer might struggle with developing scalable strategies or implementing tools and processes that can support growth.
• Lack of Strategic Thinking: Many junior marketers lack experience in strategic planning, which is crucial for aligning marketing efforts with business goals and ensuring long-term success.
• Burnout: The high demands of a startup, coupled with the pressure to deliver results quickly, can lead to burnout, especially for less experienced marketers. The burnout is compounded by stretch goals and their inability to strategically solve problems while executing against that strategy. Productivity is useless in a startup if it doesn’t move the needle. Startup founders have a very limited runway in which to prove their idea. This is not the time to go for the cheap option.
What types of startup founders are more likely to be successful with junior marketers? Conversely, which types tend to be unsuccessful?
Successful Founder Types:
• Hands-On Founders: Founders who have some marketing knowledge and are willing to mentor and guide a junior marketer tend to be more successful. They can provide the necessary strategic direction while the junior marketer handles execution. This assumes that the founder can function as a successful marketer and has the background or experience.
• Collaborative Founders: Those who foster a collaborative environment, encouraging learning and growth, are likely to see better results from a junior marketer. Again, it’s important that the founders support the junior marketer with a lot of resources, making this cost-effective option less cost effective.
Unsuccessful Founder Types:
• Absent Founders: Founders who expect a junior marketer to operate independently without guidance or support often find that the marketer struggles to meet expectations.
• Micromanagers: Founders who excessively micromanage can stifle the creativity and initiative of a junior marketer, leading to frustration and underperformance. This can be a good thing in some cases, but it takes the focus away from the leader doing their job. Again, it’s not cost-effective or smart for a founder to be turn into a trainer when there is so much at stake. Each employee is there to pull their own weight and positively contribute. If they don’t or can’t, this is called carrying dead weight.
What C-Level Roles Are Responsible for Marketing (If There Isn’t a Marketer in the Company)?
In the absence of a dedicated marketer, marketing responsibilities often fall to other C-level executives:
• CEO: In many startups, especially in the early stages, the CEO often takes on the marketing role, especially if they have a background in sales or marketing.
• COO: The COO may handle marketing if their role encompasses growth and operations, particularly in startups focused on operational efficiency.
• CRO (Chief Revenue Officer): In some startups, the CRO might oversee marketing, particularly when the company focuses heavily on sales-driven growth.
• CTO: In tech-heavy startups, the CTO might take on marketing, particularly if the marketing strategy is deeply intertwined with product development and technology.
These executives often manage marketing until the startup is ready to hire a dedicated marketing professional.
If you’re interested in avoiding the pitfalls of hiring your first marketer or marketing leader, reach out for a chat with us. We’ve worked with over 100 startups and their founders of marketing leaders to create successful programs. Once we find your growth efficiency and scale it, we help you hire FTEs into that role.