Establishing a Marketing Function from Scratch
A guide for early-stage founders who are tired of winging it.
You’ve raised a round, you’ve got product traction, and your investors are asking about generating leads, pipelines, events, webinars or "how marketing is going." And you’re thinking… what marketing?
If you’re like many early-stage founders in B2B or deep tech, marketing has been a mix of hustle, hopeful experiments, and a few solid wins that feel hard to repeat. At some point, intuition stops scaling—and you realize it’s time to build a real marketing function.
Here’s how to do it without wasting time, headcount, or momentum.
Step 1: Define What Marketing Needs to Do Right Now
Marketing isn’t one-size-fits-all—especially at the early stage. Start by defining your primary goal. For example:
Do you need messaging clarity so sales can stop rewriting emails?
Are you preparing for a launch or new round and need to look legit?
Are you trying to create a repeatable lead gen process?
Be ruthless in prioritizing. Marketing can do many things, but at this stage, it shouldn’t do everything. Choose 1–2 focus areas that move the business forward, fast. Often times, it’s revenue generation.
Step 2: Get the Foundation in Place
Before you run ads, build funnels, or crank out content, make sure your core foundation is solid:
Clear positioning: What do you do, who is it for, and why does it matter? Does your target persona actually care?
Cohesive messaging: Across your homepage, deck, emails, and sales materials.
Consistent brand basics: Logo, voice, and visual direction—even if simple—should feel unified.
Without this foundation, every tactic becomes a guess.
Step 3: Decide What to Build In-House (and What to Borrow)
You don’t need a 5 person team on day one. A smart early-stage setup usually looks like this:
A strategic lead (internal or fractional) to define priorities, manage execution, and tie marketing to business goals.
A generalist or marketing manager to get things done and collaborate cross-functionally.
Access to freelance specialists (copywriters, designers, SEO, etc.) as needed.
Avoid hiring a junior marketer with no guidance—it’s not fair to them, and it won’t get you where you need to go.
Step 4: Align with Sales, Product, and Founders
Your first marketing hire (or partner) should sit close to the core team. Early marketing wins usually happen at the intersection of:
Sales enablement: Helping close deals faster.
Product communication: Explaining features in plain English.
Founder story: Translating vision into something the market actually cares about.
If marketing is off in its own silo, it will never have the context it needs to work.
Step 5: Build the First Repeatable Motion
Whether it’s content, outbound, partnerships, or paid—you need one thing that reliably generates traction. Don’t spread thin.
Examples:
A monthly thought leadership series that brings in leads
A tight outbound campaign with messaging that actually gets replies
A gated guide or calculator that feeds your pipeline
Once one motion works, optimize it. Then layer in the next one. Don’t build five half-working channels at once.
Final Thoughts: Don’t Over-Complicate It
You don’t need a massive team or expensive tech stack to get started. You need clarity, focus, and someone who knows how to turn strategy into execution. Marketing functions are built in layers—and the first layer is often the most important.
If you’re ready to get serious about marketing, make the decision to build with intent.
