If you're a founder or early-stage team member, you’ve likely juggled marketing yourself: setting up email campaigns, writing LinkedIn posts, maybe even running some paid ads. But there’s a moment every growing startup hits: DIY marketing stalls, and you need someone dedicated to driving demand, storytelling, and pipeline.

So how do you get this high-stakes hire right?

Table of Contents:

• When Is the Right Time to Hire a Marketer?
• What Kind of Marketer Should Be Your First Hire?
• The Hiring Process: Do It Smarter
• Super.Intro Can Help You Find the Right Marketer
• Final Thoughts

When Is the Right Time to Hire a Marketer? 🚦 

Startups often either hire too soon—before there’s product-market fit—or too late, when opportunities are already being missed. Here’s how to know you’re ready:

• You’ve validated your product and early customer base
• Growth has become inconsistent or hard to track
• You’re burning time and money trying to scale what worked once
• Your founder team is stretched thin and needs to focus elsewhere
• You're planning to raise funding or expand to new markets

👉 If you’re checking off two or more of these, you’re likely ready for a dedicated marketing lead.

What Kind of Marketer Should Be Your First Hire? 🧠 

This role isn’t about finding a brand wizard or a performance ads expert (yet). You need a strategic generalist who can experiment, adapt, and deliver across channels.

Your ideal first marketer should be:

• Comfortable with both strategy and execution
  
  
• Experienced with zero-to-one growth (especially for B2B or early-stage)
  
  
• Data-driven, but able to work with imperfect metrics
  
  
• Fluent in startup-style content, demand gen, and product positioning
  
  
• Collaborative with product, sales, and leadership

📌 Bonus: Look for people who’ve worked at companies one stage ahead of yours. They’ll bring just enough playbook without rigid thinking.

The Hiring Process: Do It Smarter 🔍 

Hiring your first marketer is often a gut-led call. But here’s how to make the process sharper:

1. Define the outcomes you need in the next 6–12 months (not just skills).
   
   
2. Create a realistic job description that reflects startup realities.
   
   
3. Access portfolio tools (like Super.Page) and async video intro tools (like Super.Intro) to assess communication and creative thinking early.
   
   
4. Don’t rely only on resumes, ask for portfolio links, campaigns run, or content samples.
   
   
5. Involve product and sales teams in interviews. Good marketers collaborate early and often.

Super.Stuff Can Help You Find the Right Marketer - Faster 🧭 

SuperStuff is built for one goal: helping startups and enterprise brands hire marketers smarter,  without wasting time or runway.

Instead of sifting through hundreds of résumés or running generic interviews, we give you pre-vetted marketers and agencies who match your exact stage, goals, and working style.

Here’s how we do it:

• AI + Human Matchmaking 🤝 We combine AI-driven filtering with expert review to match you with marketers who truly fit - whether you’re looking for performance growth, content-led brand building, or go-to-market strategy. We factor in your company’s stage, industry, marketing needs, and team vibe to recommend talent that actually fits.

• Talent You Can See in Action 🎥 Before you ever hop on a call, you’ll get a clear view into how each marketer thinks, communicates, and solves problems — through video intros, work samples, and past projects. No guesswork, no fluff.

• Freelance, Agency, or Full-Time 💼
  Whether you're exploring your first marketing hire or testing the waters with a freelancer or boutique agency, we’ve got you covered.

1. Hire freelancers or agencies for free: we only charge them a platform fee when hired.
2. For full-time hires, you pay just 10% of the annual salary (only if you hire.) No upfront fees.
   
   

Free, Honest Hiring Advice 💬

Confused between full-time vs freelance hires? Unsure what kind of marketer you need? We’ll help you figure it out. No sales pitch, just real talk from folks who’ve built and scaled growth teams before.

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Check out some of SuperStuff’s successful case studies: https://www.superstuff.ai/case-studies