Ask HN: Need tips for marketing for 2 technical founder for startup

1 points by StickyRibbs 2 years ago | 4 comments

I'm one of 2 technical founders for a mini-startup that's beginning to get traction in terms of market fit.

We both realize that neither of us have the skills or time to develop and deploy a marketing and brand strategy campaign.

We both believe that hiring or bringing someone in to develop a more robust go to market strategy would be beneficial.

What kind of options do we have at the current level we're at? We have our own capital to spend and we're looking to only start with a few thousand per month but would consider more as we're currently not generating revenue but we will soon.

I've looked into hiring a marketing consultant but I need someone who can take ownership and execute on their own with the help of our direction.

I've looked into hiring a freelance marketer and this seems like a viable option to start with to create marketing material, writing SEO content, etc.

I've looked into hiring a boutique agency but am having a hard time finding transparency on upfront costs'

I also have personality connections to broadcast our product but again I would like someone to take ownership of this process rather than doing it myself.

Any advice from the HN community for how to approach this? Thanks!

noashavit 2 years ago |

I think that it is too early for you to do this. I would not go down the agency route, unless you have clear personas, messaging, targeting, and have managed agencies in the past so you can quickly assess all of the available options. Use an agency to scale what you have found to work (even if you only tested it on 10 ppl), otherwise they will be spinning their wheels trying to learn about your offering, customers, competitors, etc. to come up with strategy and plans.

I would not recommend you hire a consultant to own marketing until you have a clear understanding of your ideal customer and targets. You need to be sure about your ideal customers' company profile and pain points at a minimum. However, a consultant can help with well defined projects, especially if they require a specific kill sit (i.e. build 200 programatic pages for SEO to feature all of our integrations / programming languages we support/ SDKS, etc.).

I would recommend you lean into your VCs and network and speak with people that have done what you are looking to do. Your VCs might have a network of talent that is open to be non paying advisors (I do this myself).

In terms of growth motions you can put in play today, I would recommend you start documenting some of the cool things you are working on/ learning and posting that on your blog, and invest in documentation. Content is king, but it is a long game so I would start there. Another tactic you can deploy today is to start bidding on your brand name in Google Ads, to make sure you come up on the first page for that search. It shouldn't be too expensive either as it is your brand name. Look at that first page of results and see if you can find ways to add more links to that first page (do you have a LinkedIn page? What about a X account? Are you on Chunchbase? What about G2 and other product listing sites?)

Once you have done this, have had at least 20 conversations with your ideal target that is not from within your network and you still feel indicators of product-market fit, then look for a fractional CMO with experience with your market and buyer.

Generally, I wound't recommend you start paying for someone to own marketing until your seed round.

spxneo 2 years ago |

you don't need to. you should only hire for marketing once you've discovered a pathway to paying customers.

The work has to be done by the founders but both of you are unwilling to deal with the pain and grit required, you don't need advice, you need perspective.

StickyRibbs 2 years ago | |

Not sure if it was clear in my OP, but there are only 2 technical founders and I am one of them. We also already have a pathway to paying customers; that was also clear in my OP.

Also, what exactly do you mean by pain and grit? we're already doing that. we're growing and have growing pains hence the point of this post.

noashavit 2 years ago | | |

pain around defining your ICP, testing messaging and targeting, conducting customer research, etc.