Hiring your first marketer is one of those moments that looks simple on paper and gets weird in real life.
Because what you think you’re hiring is “someone to do marketing.”
What you’re actually hiring is the person who will translate your product into language, build a growth system, and—if you do it right—make your next fundraising deck a lot more fun to present.
I’ve been the first marketing hire multiple times (seed through Series A), built teams from zero, and helped turn “marketing = vibes” into predictable ARR growth. Here’s the CEO playbook I wish more founders had before making this hire.
Why first marketing hires fail (and it’s usually not the marketer)
Most early-stage marketing failures come down to one of these:
1) You hired too early
If you can’t clearly answer:
- Who buys this?
- Why do they buy it?
- What do they replace?
- What triggers purchase?
…then marketing becomes expensive guessing.
Marketing can help you discover positioning, sure—but you need enough signal from sales calls, support tickets, and user behavior to start shaping a message that sticks.
2) You hired the wrong “type” for your stage
Early-stage SaaS needs a builder. Not a “brand-only” person. Not a “growth-only” person. Not a “demand gen only” person. A builder who can do strategy and execute.
3) You hired a doer… then gave them no leverage
No analytics access, no ability to change the website, no time with customers, no budget, no founder buy-in, no clear goal.
That’s not a marketing role. That’s a content intern with a title.
Step 1: Know what you actually need (hint: it’s not “more leads”)
There are three common reasons CEOs hire their first marketer:
A) You need positioning + narrative
Your product is good, but nobody gets it fast enough.
Success looks like:
- tighter homepage messaging
- clearer ICP (ideal customer profile)
- sales calls go better because the story is sharper
- “Ohhh, I get it” happens sooner
B) You need pipeline acceleration
Sales is working… slowly.
Success looks like:
- consistent inbound growth
- improved lead-to-opportunity conversion
- sales enablement that reduces cycle time
- fewer “bad fit” demos
C) You need a scalable growth engine
You’ve got traction and want repeatability.
Success looks like:
- channel strategy
- testing + iteration cadence
- attribution you can trust
- compounding growth (SEO, lifecycle, partnerships)
Pick one primary reason for the next 90 days.
If your first marketer is trying to do all three at once, they’ll do none of them well.
Step 2: Make the job post honest (and weirdly specific)
A great first marketing hire job post reads like a list of actual problems, not a list of marketing channels.
Instead of:
- “Own demand gen”
- “Run social media”
- “Manage content calendar”
Write:
- “We need to turn founder-led sales learnings into a message that converts on the website.”
- “We need to improve free-to-paid conversion in self-serve from X% to Y%.”
- “We need to build an SEO system that compounds, not a blog that dies in Google’s basement.”
If you can’t write those sentences, you’re not ready to hire marketing—you’re ready to do more customer discovery.
Step 3: Hire for range, not perfection
Your first marketing hire needs range. Not because they’re magical, but because early-stage SaaS is messy.
Look for someone who can:
- write and edit (clear, not “clever”)
- ship landing pages without waiting 3 weeks for engineering
- talk to customers without making it awkward
- set up analytics and dashboards without needing a data team
- run 2–3 channels well (not 10 channels poorly)
The profile that tends to work best:
“Full-stack marketer with strong product sense”
Someone who can bridge product ? narrative ? distribution ? conversion.
If they’ve been a first marketing hire before, even better. They’ll know how to build the plane while flying it… and keep the receipts.
Step 4: Your interview should test judgment, not trivia
Skip “What’s your favorite SaaS metric?” questions. Ask things that reveal how they think.
Here are CEO-friendly interview prompts that work:
1) “Tell me what you think we sell—based on our homepage.”
You’re testing:
- clarity
- positioning instincts
- whether they can spot confusion quickly
2) “If you had 30 days, what would you do first?”
You’re testing:
- prioritization
- ability to find leverage
- whether they default to “post on LinkedIn” (not inherently bad, just incomplete)
3) “Show me something you shipped that moved a metric.”
You’re testing:
- execution
- measurement
- honesty about what worked vs what didn’t
4) “What would you not do in our situation?”
You’re testing:
- restraint
- strategic maturity
- stage awareness
Step 5: Give them leverage on day one (this is where CEOs can actually be great)
Your first marketer’s success is heavily dependent on the access you give them.
Give them:
- direct access to customer calls (sales + success)
- permission to change the website and onboarding flows
- access to product analytics (Amplitude/GA/etc.)
- a weekly 30-minute CEO sync (non-negotiable)
- clarity on what “good” looks like in 90 days
Do not give them:
- 14 priorities
- random drive-by requests
- “We need to go viral”
- “Just do what you did at your last company” (context matters)
If you want them to build a growth engine, don’t chain them to busywork.
Step 6: Set 90-day expectations that don’t sabotage the relationship
Early-stage marketing is often about building foundations and showing momentum. You can do both if you plan it right.
Here’s a practical 90-day framework:
Days 1–30: Diagnose + quick wins
Deliverables:
- ICP hypothesis + messaging doc
- funnel baseline (where users drop off)
- 3–5 quick conversion wins (homepage, pricing, onboarding emails)
- channel strategy recommendation (what to test and why)
Days 31–60: Build the system
Deliverables:
- content strategy tied to pipeline or activation (not “thought leadership for fun”)
- reporting dashboard (simple but trusted)
- first repeatable campaign process (SEO cluster, webinar, outbound assist, etc.)
Days 61–90: Prove traction
Deliverables:
- measurable lift in one key metric (conversion, pipeline, activation)
- 1–2 channels showing early compounding signals
- hiring plan or agency gaps identified (if needed)
A good first marketer doesn’t just “do marketing”—they create a machine other people can run.
Step 7: Don’t make marketing carry product-market fit (but let it help you find it)
Marketing can amplify what’s already working. It can also help you find the message that resonates.
But it can’t:
- fix retention
- fix pricing confusion that’s rooted in packaging
- fix a product that’s hard to adopt
- fix “we sell to everyone”
The best CEOs treat marketing as a feedback loop:
- marketing learns from sales + product usage
- marketing ships messaging + conversion experiments
- results inform product decisions
- product improvements make marketing more effective
That’s the compounding loop. That’s the good stuff.
The CEO checklist: Are you ready for your first marketing hire?
If you can say “yes” to most of these, you’re ready:
- We have at least one customer segment that’s buying (or strongly piloting)
- We can name our top 3 reasons customers choose us
- We’re willing to let marketing touch the website, onboarding, and messaging
- We can commit to one primary goal for 90 days
- We’ll give them access to customers and data
- We understand marketing is a system, not a slot machine
If you can’t… wait, or hire a fractional marketer to help you get there.
Final thought: Your first marketer is a translator
Early-stage SaaS is full of brilliant products that lose because nobody understands them fast enough.
Your first marketing hire is the person who makes the product legible—then makes it spread.
Hire for judgment. Give them leverage. Pick one goal. And don’t expect miracles… expect systems.
If you do that, you won’t just “hire marketing.”
You’ll build a growth engine you can actually steer.
