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Sveta Bay

As an Indie Founder, why don't you hire a marketer?

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The majority of Indie Founders have a tech background. They love building new features but don't like marketing their product. As a result, sometimes good products are used by none. So, my question is - why not hire a marketer?

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Davíd Lavie
There’s no good reason not to. The story of fantastic products that didn’t get the promotion they deserved and consequently failed, and the converse: middling products promoted relentlessly and gaining solid market share as a result is as old as the world. To quote Zohan: I’ve seen this, I’ve done this. Trust me – you don’t want this.
Kevin Lu
@david_lavie Agreed with you! The strategy I did was launching my product as early as possible even though it was very ugly XD. Then, through talking to my super early users, I started to iterate the product, and of course, if we make our early users love us so much, they would spread the words for us!
Treebel S
@david_lavie well ok, how would you start if you were hiring a marketer for the very first time? What do you look for and what do you ask for?
Kevin Lu
@basv This is a good question, Sveta! I didn't hire a marketer at the beginning because 1. I launched my product last year and it was very rough and not functional, I did not need a marketer to market the product yet. 2. At the early stage, most startups' products still have many rooms for improvement, therefore, they may need business developer more than a marketer. 3. Although I am not tech background, I've spent so much time doing business development/marketing myself just to get to know what my REAL customer profile look like. Testing a way out by myself so when the marketer joins our team, I can share with them what my target audience looks like.
Sveta Bay
@dot_brand That's a super solid catch about a business developer! Kevin, you're such a rare founder doing a lot of user research. I believe that the best marketer for a product is a founder. May I ask how did you get marketing knowledge? Was it learning by doing or smth else?
Kevin Lu
@basv XD thanks for the compliment~ The main job of founders at the early stage is to make sure they find the first 100 paying customers who love their products! The definition of love: "pay, anti-churn, and referral" I would only hire a marketer to duplicate and amplify that process until you reach your ideal SOM. Then, it's time to rebrand and expand the market! I was a brand designer for 13 years and collaborated with many marketers, business developers, and brand consultants, that's how I got my basic knowledge of marketing. After I became an entrepreneur, I gradually learned from YCombinator about what founders should do at the very early stage. Then, combining with my basic marketing knowledge, it all makes sense after.
Kevin Lu
@basv One more thing, I am not saying not hiring a marketer at the early stage, like I have my own marketer now~ But the difference is founders need to know what a marketer should do at different stages so that marketers would know how to follow the direction.
Kevin Lu
@basv @sean_dorje Thanks Sean! I followed yours too! XD
Bilal Ararou
@basv great question and discussion. For me personally, the main reason is I want to learn these marketing skills myself, this way even if the current product fails, I will have enough audience and skills (hopefully) to launch the next one successfully. And a combination of wanting to maintain full control over the product direction and probably limited resources at the early stages of Nuelink. P.S. I work with a team who help me with the marketing, SEO, Support etc... And planning to put more marketing resources as we grow.
Sveta Bay
@bilalararou I love this approach! If not a secret, how do you learn marketing skills?
Bilal Ararou
@basv honestly by trying different activities, from recording the how to videos, sharing the progress on social media, experimenting with Ads (Google, Facebook and recently Reddit ads) and email marketing. Sometimes I get some friends to help me out set things up and recommend things.
Treebel S
Great post! Me, I just don’t know why I should pick one marketer over the other. I’ve had a lot of different marketers reach out at this point and I still have the following questions: Would they offer consulting, am I getting copy, cost etc. There’s a lot to cover. And from what I’ve seen and received I’m not sure.
Sveta Bay
@treebel_solimani_masihi Interesting! May I ask what you want the most? Is it coaching, doing marketing for you, or outsourcing some marketing tasks for example?
Treebel S
@basv well how could I know what’s the best first step right? I’m not a marketer :)
Fabio Viola
Said honestly: I don't do it just because I can't afford it. I have to carry on consulting to support myself, the bare minimum to live on, so that I have more time (but less money) for my projects! A partner instead of a collaborator would definitely be better! :)
Jamayal Tanweer
The same applies to design. I've worked with Indie Founders who lack brand presence, cohesive personality, and alignment with their product (all design-wise). They only hire a designer as an afterthought, treating the MVP as purely functional. Curious to hear about others' experiences.
Kevin Lu
@jamayal I was a designer myself but after being an entrepreneur, the perspective would be different especially when we only have so much resources. Most of time, at the super early stage, it would be better to work on business development or sales, and make sure the function/feature is something people want. However, depending on our target audience, we may start to adapt design or marketing gradually. This is my product, https://www.producthunt.com/prod... when it was at the very early stage last year, it was hella ugly XD even though I was a designer before this startup, I had to get feedbacks as soon as possible from our designer users. Therefore, I launched it when it wasn't even functional and ugly; then, I iterated gradually based on the feedbacks from the market~
Jamayal Tanweer
@dot_brand Oh I love your product!
At least for me, I like the idea of bootstrapping my product and not spending until I'm making revenue. Though I might revise this in the future
Kevin Lu
@pothamram Thanks for your sharing, Ram! Followed your product! God speed!!
Lord Brian Dean-Madanamootoo
@pothamram 🚀We are launching today! 🚀 Hey Guys we are launching today and your review and support would mean a lot to us. (https://www.producthunt.com/post...)
Vasiliy Berenkov
Because i am a marketer 😅
Nick Anisimov
There should be a good marketer among the founders. There are no successful products without great marketing. At the initial stage, it is difficult to hire a cool marketer (who will go to work in a startup for a penny?), and you don't need a bad marketer, so either by yourself or not at all.
Kevin Lu
@nickanisimov Agreed with you~ Business development or sales holds the most process on early-stage-growing, and after the founder finds the pattern, earns some money, and has the needs to expand the market, that's when marketers come in~
Shivani Kumar
I worked on the legal side of startups for around 2 years. From what I saw, marketing/content resources either came in too late or were too expensive. Unless you have a specific person on your founding team, marketing is pushed to the side to focus on commercial operations (not the best idea, but for obvious reasons, shaping the product/service comes first before pushing it out to market). You can choose freelancers, but they're not hugely reliable. It really comes down to budget and where the status of the product is. Because of what I saw, I created my content agency aimed at startups and growing businesses that offers an affordable, white-glove productised service that scales alongside growing companies and straddles between an in-house and external resource.
Kevin Lu
@atheniscommunications Indeed! Most of time it still relies the founder to "test" out a way to market/business develop/sales at the very early stage. After finding a pattern and earning some money, that's when most marketers come in~
Lord Brian Dean-Madanamootoo
Hey Sveta, what I personally found is, if you have budget in the early stage a lot of founder do hire marketers but sometimes as they are too early they do not get the desired results and end up burning up their funds. For those who are bit more mature in stage, when they do hire a marketer it actually works fine, provided you can get a good one.
Kevin Lu
@lord_svp I agree with you~ At the very early stage, it would be better to work on business development or sales but marketing~ I noticed you are launching soon, FOLLOWED! God speed to both of us! XD
Cyril Gupta
I have a marketing team but not a marketing founder. I do my marketing myself. If I can learn to code and do hard things like that... I can learn marketing too.
Lord Brian Dean-Madanamootoo
@cyriljeet 🚀We are launching today! 🚀 Hey Guys we are launching today and your review and support would mean a lot to us. (https://www.producthunt.com/post...)
Kunal Mehta
Hiring a marketer may not be a priority for an indie founder due to limited resources and a focus on product development. Additionally, they may lack the expertise to effectively evaluate and manage marketing efforts, leading to potential inefficiencies and misalignment with the product vision.
Lord Brian Dean-Madanamootoo
@realkunalmehta 🚀We are launching today! 🚀 Hey Guys we are launching today and your review and support would mean a lot to us. (https://www.producthunt.com/post...)
Jurgen Siegel
Mostly because they are expensive.
Anna Kasumova
Hi Sveta! Let me tell you about our experience. We work with my husband. He is a developer, I do promotion. Marketing is everything. This is from interface design to make it convenient for customers to communicate with a client on an urgent issue even at night. Hiring a marketer is usually hiring a person who will write a content plan for social networks and some promotions. This is too little to hire a person. I believe that the best marketer is a founder who develops in marketing. There are a huge number of books, the experience of other companies when you start everything yourself, because you know the product and the client better. And then you can already hire SMM, etc. I can recommend some books if you want
Launching soon!
I'm not an Indie founder. Still, here are a few thoughts on why it happens: 1) Not feasible for many Indie founders. It's just hard to hire a good marketer. 2) Hard to find a good marketer who would band up with an Indie. 3) Early adopters are mostly friendly. So it's better if tech founders can handle marketers themselves.