You need me on that wall.
A marketer’s role in Startup Land.
Quick show of hands — how many startups do you know with marketers as part of the founding team? Okay, now how many of you have heard of failed ventures due to lack of paying customers (whether quantity or quality)?
You disproportionate bastards.
Don’t you know we’re totes hot right now? Seriously…
You’ve Googled “what is growth hacking”, I know it. Don’t lie. You’ve experimented with landing pages, you sly fox, you. Maybe, just maybe, you’ve read a Slideshare deck on CRO.
I see you out there, lurking on r/startups asking questions like, “I built a great app, now what?!!!”. You considered diving into some customer development stuff — do things that don’t scale! — but it was a little scarier than you imagined. Better get back to coding. Oh, and reading that new Gary V. book!
I’m sorry, bro. I love you.
Here’s the deal. You’d be best served with me by your side. I’m the peanut butter to your jelly. And you’re the Hacker to my News. You’re finally starting to see the value we bring to the table. Sure, we can’t “build” something tangible like you do, but the best parts of life are those you can’t touch with your own two hands (until Google Glass changes that on our asses).
Acquisition — I got you. Growth — I got you. Engagement — I own that shit.
I’ll run the interviews, stand in the middle of Union Square begging college kids to answer three quick questions, scrape forum after forum for patterns that can be turned into pivot-worthy information. I’ll labor over data and magically turn that pile of numbers into directions for our drive to increased DAU/MAU. I’ll establish relationships with the tech press, hound industry blogs to let us guest post for them, tweet and retweet and favorite and like, stay up at night mapping where the drop-off is in our drip campaign, and I’ll fight churn, baby churn like a welterweight champ.
Let’s do this shit. You and me.
(For real, though, holler at me if you need some startup marketing help.)
