Start with Product Marketing

So you've decided to make your first marketing hire. Congratulations, and good luck.

Now comes the harder decision: what type of marketer? What kind of marketing does your company actually need right now? Where do you get the best return?

Start with a product marketer. That's the answer.

Product marketing isn't the easiest role to fill, but it does something no other hire can at this stage: it translates the greatness of your product into language your audience actually understands. That matters enormously, especially early on.

When your product specs and features become clear, accessible content, you start bringing in real users. You convince early design partners to get on board. You support business development conversations. A product marketer gets your value out of the building and into the right hands. They're the bridge between what you built and why anyone should care.

A product marketer isn't necessarily a great copywriter. What they are is someone who exposes your product in ways your technical co-founder or product manager simply can't. Different lens, different output.

Also worth noting: most other marketing functions, including promotion, design, growth, analytics, and web, are relatively easy to source as freelancers or part-timers. A good product marketer, fully embedded in your product daily, is not.

Great product marketing makes every other marketing effort better. And yes, it also helps get your kids excited about pizza sticks.