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Marketing at a startup is unpredictable.
You’re trying to find product-market fit, the team is evolving, and cultural norms haven’t been established.
It’s an exciting time where high agency people can have a tremendous impact on the company. And just as companies evolve as they scale, the role of marketing can change dramatically in the early years.
While there is plenty of literature on how to hire your first marketer and mistakes to avoid, there is little coverage on the actual first marketing hires at fast paced startups.
Today, we share the first marketing hire at 30 well known startups across B2B and B2C. Some of these companies went on to become big winners in their space. Others ended up getting acquired, acqui-hired or shutting down. While the first person responsible for marketing is typically a cofounder, and sometimes they continue in that role, oftentimes they hire a jill-or-jack-of-all-trades that can handle all things ‘marketing’.
Takeaways:
1/ Founders are often the first marketer. In the early days, founders wear all the hats. And even if the founding team is mostly/all technical, someone is talking with customers, shaping the messaging, and acquiring initial customers.
2/ Both sides, candidates and companies, are betting on upside. The companies are often unknown at the time of hire. And the candidates are often unproven as well. Most of the companies don’t have brand recognition to compete with FANG, so employees are often referrals or have high upside.
3/ The background of first marketing hires varies greatly from directly out of college, to banking and finance, to consultants, marketing managers, PR, and interns.
Year 0 Hires
Lyft
Company Age: 0 years
Hired: 2012
Employee Number: <30
Adam’s Background: ecommerce and digital marketing
Where was Lyft in 2012?
Transitioning from ZimRide to Lyft business model
Acquiring initial drivers and establishing ride standards
Hotwire
Company Age: 0
Hired: 2000
Employee Number: NA
Name: Cheryl Law
Cheryl’s Background: CPG marketing manager
Where was hotwire in 2000?
Just getting off the ground with $75M from private equity firm TPG
Asana
Company Age: 0
Hired: 2011
Employee number: ~20
Kenny’s Background: COO-type business roles
Where was Asana in 2011?
Had raised a modest ~$10M across its early rounds
Initial product / market fit
Neeva
Company Age: 0
Hired: 2019
Employee Number: <25
Name: Sandy Banerjee
Sandy’s Background: product marketing
Where was Neeva in 2019?
Just getting off the ground
Pulse (acquired by linkedin)
Company Age: ~0
Hired: 2010
Employee Number: 1
Cristina’s Background: college
Where was Pulse in 2010?
Just getting started by two Stanford grad students
Was featured in Steve Jobs’ Worldwide Developers Conference presentation
StockX
Company Age: 0
Hired: 2015
Employee number: 7
Matthew’s Background: digital marketing and social media
Joined as employee #7 and the first marketing team member of StockX, a digital marketplace for buying and selling sneakers, streetwear, and collectibles, currently valued at over $3.8B
Where was StockX in 2015?
Getting ready for their official launch in Feb 2016
Thumbtack
Company Age: 0 years
Hired: 2009
Employee Number: co-founder (<5)
Jonathan’s Background: White House
Where was Thumbtack in 2009?
Just getting off the ground
Pitching investors, with the first 42 saying no
Year 1 Hires
Uber
Company Age: 1
Hired: 2010
Employee Number: 4
Austin Geidt
Austin’s Background: college
Where was Uber in 2010?
Testing the service in NY and SF
Raised $1.25M angel round
Travis became CEO
YouTube
Company Age: 1
Hired: 2006
Employee Number: 30
Suzie’s Background: sales and magazine publishing
Where was YouTube in 2006?
Growing very fast and impacting culture with videos such as “Charlie Bit My Finger” and “Evolution of Dance” gaining millions of views.
Suzie joined prior to the Google acquisition in October of that year
Spotify
Company Age: 1
Hired: 2007
Employee number: NA
Sophia’s Background: PR & consulting
Where was Spotify in 2007?
Invite only service
Officially launch in europe in 2008
Lattice
Company Age: 1
Hired: 2016
Employee Number: 3
Alex’s Background: account management
Where was Lattice in 2016?
Launched an OKR product
Raised a $2.8 million seed round
Hubspot
Company Age: 1
Hired: 2007
Employee Number: ~5
Mike’s Background: marketing ops and business development
Where was HubSpot in 2007?
Gearing up for official launch in December of 2007
Launched website grader tool
Hit $255K in revenue
Kickstarter
Company Age: 1
Hired: 2010
Employee Number: 9
Name: Cindy Au
Cindy’s Background: content strategy
Where was Kickstarter in 2010?
Early product / market fit with nearly 4,000 successfully completed projects and nearly $30M in funding.
Dropbox
Company Age: 1 year
Hired: 2008
Employee Number: ~10
Sean’s Background: digital marketing
Where was Dropbox in 2008?
Roughly 10 employees and 200,000 customers
Was scaling quickly with their free-space referral program
Year 2 Hires
Brex
Company Age: 2 years
Hired: 2019
Employee Number: NA
Elenitsa’s Background: growth and demand gen
Where was Brex in 2019?
Only one year post official launch, they closed a $100 million fundraising round
Build out the growth and marketing team so Co-Founder Henrique Dubugras could focus on running the business
Affirm
Company Age: 2 yrs
Hired 2014
Employee number: 40
Ed’s Background: digital and acquisition marketing
Where was Affirm in 2014?
Forging partnerships with ecommerce companies
Refining its underwriting
Raised $45M
Duolingo
Company Age: 2
Hired: 2013
Employee Number: ~20
Gina’s Background: international market expansion
Where was Duoling in 2013?
Grew from 3 to 5 million users in the year
#1 education app in the Google Play Store
Gusto
Company Age: 2
Hired: 2013
Employee Number: ~11
Jaleh’s Background: product marketing
Where was Gusto in 2013?
Completed YC the year prior
processed over $100 million in payments annually
Clari
Company Age: 2
Hired: 2014
Employee Number: NA
Donovan’s Background: digital marketing
Where was Clari in 2014?
Refining its sales analytics and forecasting platform
Initial adoption in technology, telecommunications, and healthcare industries
$14.5M raised
Year 3 Hires
Stripe
Company Age: 3 yrs
Hired 2013
Employee number: NA
Krithika Muthukumar (also OpenAI’s first marketing hire)
Krithika’s Background: product marketing
Was Stripe’s first marketing hire (and only marketer for 3 years). Drove all product launches, new market expansion, developer and community outreach, sales enablement, and more.
Where was Stripe in 2013?
Had closed $18M series A year prior
Nearly 100,000 developer accounts
Figma
Company Age: 3
Hired: 2015
Employee Number: 10
Claire’s Background: product marketing and demand generation
Where was Figma in 2015?
Company was still in stealth preparing for their 2016 launch
Square
Company Age: 3
Hired: 2012
Employee number: NA
Arielle’s Background: product marketing
Where was Square in 2012?
Starbucks invests $25 million in Square and makes Square its exclusive processor of debit and credit card payments.
Square closes $200 million in Series D financing.
Eventbrite
Company Age: 3
Hired: 2009
Employee Number: ~30
Name: Tamara Mendelsohn
Tamara’s Background: consulting and digital marketing
Where was Eventbrite in 2009?
Trying to get the flywheel going as VC funding had dried up
2009 Webware 100 award for Best Commerce Site by Webware, a CNET site
Year 4 Hires
Calm
Company Age: 4 years
Hired: 2016
Employee Number: NA
Alex’s Background: co-founder of consumer focused startups based in London
Where was Calm in 2016?
Raised ~$1.8M across two seed rounds
Around 5 million downloads and catching momentum
Co-founder Alex Tew had played a key role in early marketing wins given his background in viral marketing, including The Million Dollar Homepage, earning him $1 million in five months.
Netflix
Company Age: 4
Hired: 2001
Employee Number: NA
Where was Netflix in 2001?
Dot-com bust was in full swing
Blockbuster had 52 million members and around 7,000 locations
Company Age: 4 years
Hired: 2012
Employee Number: ~50
Name: Annie Katrina Lee
Don’s Background: online operations and sales
Where was Pinterest in 2012?
Publicly launched in 2010 by 2012 the app was rapidly scaling from 9 million to 40 million users that year
Grubhub
Company Age: 4 years
Hired: 2008
Employee Number: NA
Casey’s Background: digital marketing and SEO
Where was Grubhub in 2008?
Had closed their $1.1M series A the year earlier
Had 40k users and were quickly scaling
Year 5 Hires
MongoDB
Company Age: 5 years
Hired: 2012
Employee Number: 8
Name: Meghan Gill
Meghan’s Background: banking
Where was MongoDB in 2012?
Solidifying its position as a leading NoSQL database provider
Raised $311M
Year 6 Hires
Tesla
Company Age: 6
Hired: 2009
Employee number: NA
Ricardo Reyes
Ricardo’s Background: communications and policy
Where was Tesla in 2009?
Selling out of the Tesla Roadster without any advertising. Launched Model S and Model X. Preparing for IPO in 2010
Moat
Company Age: 6
Hired: 2016
Employee number: NA
Nicole’s Background: demand generation and sales
Where was Moat in 2016?
Recently raised series B.
Marketing organization was just forming
Later acquired by Oracle for $850M in 2017