Hiring marketing · Founders' Marketing Compass
What decides whether your first marketing hire works
Most founders reach the first marketing hire with a job spec written and a start date set. When the hire then struggles, nobody can tell whether the person is failing or the plan behind them was never given a number or a budget.
Co-founded Fixel and ran it as CEO; Logiq acquired it in 2020. Head of specialization at Ono Academic College.
Drawing on a conversation I had with Udi Ledergor, Chief Evangelist & former CMO at Gong, on Founders' Marketing Compass.
When should a startup make its first marketing hire?
Make the hire once you can name the single number marketing will own in the first year and fund a team behind it. Udi Ledergor, former CMO at Gong, uses two questions in order: what will success look like in six to twelve months, then what budget sits behind it. If the goal is ten million dollars of pipeline on a five-thousand-dollar budget, the hire is not ready.
Answered by Etgar Shpivak, who advises seed and Series A founders on marketing.
Whether your first marketing hire works is mostly settled before that person starts. The founders I work with whose first hire went wrong rarely got the person wrong. They got the setup wrong.
They couldn't say what one number the role would own, or what money stood behind it, on the day they wrote the job spec.
So the hire struggles, and everyone argues about the person. The plan nobody finished gets a pass.
The order usually runs backward. The job spec gets written first. The budget gets set in a separate meeting, by different people. And what success means stays a sentence everyone assumes they share.
The two questions a good marketer asks are the two you should answer first
The clearest version I know comes from the person being hired. Udi Ledergor, Chief Evangelist and former CMO at Gong, spent years interviewing into marketing roles.
He learned to vet companies before taking a role, and he does it with two questions in a fixed order.
The first is one I want every founder able to answer before hiring: "What will success in my role look like for you in six to 12 months?"
He wants it in specifics, the kind of result I would want a founder able to picture owning by then. Only after that does he ask the second question, about money.
The order carries the whole test.
Name an ambitious result and then fund it, and you have done the real work. Name the result but dodge the budget question, and all you have shown the marketer is the gap.
The example: ten million against a five-thousand-dollar budget
The example Ledergor gives sticks with me. A founder tells him the year needs ten million dollars of pipeline, the value of deals in progress. Asked what he can spend, the founder lands on five thousand dollars.
Ten million against five thousand isn't a stretch goal, it is a math problem with no solution. The marketer just inherits the blame.
Both questions are yours to answer before anyone is hired. Until you can, a hire may be the wrong move altogether: an advisor, a fractional CMO and an agency each solve a different problem.
A number marketing can't move sinks the best hire
Naming a number isn't enough on its own. Founders sometimes name one marketing can't move. I see it most as a product problem wearing a marketing job description.
When the target is really a product problem
Ledergor's sharper warning lands on a product stuck at a minus-fifty satisfaction score, with marketing ordered to drag it to plus fifty. I would read that goal as a product problem in disguise.
Marketing can get people to try a product. It can't make them stay once they have.
When customers leave because the product doesn't solve a real problem they'll pay for, no marketing hire fixes a product the market won't buy. A first hire's number has to be one marketing can move.
Ledergor's blunt advice to marketing leaders is one line: "choose your CEO wisely would be my number one piece of advice for CMOs". Read from the founder's chair, that is a challenge to you. Are you the CEO a capable marketer would choose, one who can hand over a number marketing can move?
You can run both checks on yourself before the seat is open
Before you open the seat, run the same two checks on yourself. Name the one number marketing will own in the first year. Name the money behind it, in the same conversation.
If you can't fund the result you want, lower the result. I wouldn't hire someone to conjure it.
The budget you can healthily put into marketing has red-flag thresholds by stage. The number you promise the hire has to sit inside them.
The 70/70 rule: is the number set right
Ledergor has a rule I use for whether a number is set right. A good target is one where about seventy percent of the team hits about seventy percent of it.
If everyone clears it, the bar was too soft. If nobody does, it was fiction, and people quit. The same test works on the number you hand your first marketer.
The hard conversation moves from the person to a number everyone agreed on
A founder who settled both answers first meets the hard conversation differently. The hire is struggling, and the question is no longer whether the marketer is any good. It is whether the number was right, funded, and moving. That is something the founder can work on, months before it would surface as a resignation.
What to do about it
Name the number and the money behind it
You have to admit, before anyone is in the seat, that the result you want may cost more than you have set aside, or that the number keeping you up at night belongs to the product and not to marketing.
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The move
The two questions settle the hire before the seat is filled.
70/70
About 70% of the team hits 70%.
Udi Ledergor
Former CMO at Gong
How to do it
- 01 Write the success number first The one result the role is judged on twelve months in.
- 02 Put the budget beside it Set the money in the same conversation, not a later one.
- 03 Close the gap before you hire If the goal is millions and the budget thousands, wait.
Founders' Marketing Compass · episode 23 · Interviewed by Etgar Shpivak · shpivak.co.il
Where this comes from
Udi Ledergor is Chief Evangelist and the former CMO at Gong, where he ran marketing for close to a decade as the company grew from its early days to hundreds of millions in revenue. Before Gong he led marketing at Israeli-founded global startups including Sarine Technologies and Panaya. He built much of Gong's early brand by dominating the online conversation in its category and by handing the public-facing role to talented people on his team rather than to executives. He now does board and advisory work alongside the evangelist role.
Read the full transcript of this conversation
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Founders' Marketing Compass episode 23. Also on Substack, this episode and YouTube.
Questions and answers
The question this page answers
What should a first marketing hire own?
A first marketing hire should own one number to move and one story to tell. Udi Ledergor, who ran marketing at Gong, told me the two things investors expect early are pipeline, the value of deals in progress, and a clear story the whole customer-facing team can repeat. Pick which of the two the role owns first, set a single number there, and judge the hire on it.
How do you interview a marketing leader for a startup?
Screen a marketing leader for the two qualities you cannot train into them later. Ledergor looks for raw energy and the ability to self-learn, and asks candidates about a recent skill they taught themselves and how. Etgar Shpivak adds the founder's half: walk in able to name the number the role will own, so the interview tests whether the candidate can move it, not whether they plan well.
How should a startup set marketing targets?
Set the target hard enough to stretch but low enough to reach. Ledergor's rule, from watching sales teams, is 70/70: aim for roughly 70% of people to clear roughly 70% of target. Everyone clearing it means the bar was too soft and you are paying accelerators you did not need. Etgar Shpivak runs that same check on the one number a founder hands the first hire.
When is it too early to make a first marketing hire?
A first marketing hire is too early while the biggest problem is one marketing cannot fix. Ledergor's first check on any company is whether marketing is even the constraint, or whether customers are leaving because the product does not yet solve a real problem. Hiring a marketer to rescue a product the market rejects burns a year and pushes out a capable person for missing someone else's target.
Around it
When should a startup hire a CMO instead of a first marketing hire?
Hire a CMO, a senior leader who runs the whole marketing function, once you can fund a team for them to lead and the job has outgrown one pair of hands. Before that, a first marketing hire or a consultant who works directly with the founder fits better. The role changes at every stage, which is one reason the leader who suits one stage can be wrong for the next.
How much should a startup budget for its first marketing hire?
Budget enough that the number you are asking for is reachable, which is the whole point of Ledergor's ten-million-goal, five-thousand-budget example: a promise no money stood behind. There is no single figure, but marketing spend carries red-flag thresholds by stage worth checking, so the target you set and the money behind it move together.
Why does the order of the two interview questions matter more than the answers?
The order carries the whole test. You define what success looks like in six to twelve months first, then name the budget behind it. A founder who names an ambitious result and funds it has done the real work. A founder who names the result but dodges the budget has only shown the marketer the gap between the two.
How do you know if a marketing target is set right?
A good target is one where about seventy percent of the team hits about seventy percent of it. If everyone clears it easily, the bar was too soft. If nobody comes close, the number was fiction and people quit. The same test works on the figure you hand your first marketing hire.
What should you do if you can't fund the marketing target you set?
Lower the target. There is no point hiring a marketer to conjure a result out of nothing, with no budget behind it. The number you promise the hire has to sit inside the healthy marketing spend for your stage. Confirm the budget covers the result first, then open the seat.
Getting help with this
Should a startup hire a first marketing person or start with a marketing consultant?
Hire in-house once success and its budget are defined and steady; before that, a consultant who has done it can help you define both without the cost of a wrong senior hire. Etgar Shpivak, a marketing consultant who works with seed and Series A founders, does exactly this work, directly with the founder, and writes about how he works on his bio page.
When is a marketing target actually a product problem?
When the number marketing is told to move depends on people staying after they try the product. Marketing can get people to try; it can't make them stay if the product doesn't solve a problem they'll pay for. A product stuck at a negative satisfaction score is a product problem in disguise, not a marketing task.
What does 'choose your CEO wisely' mean from the founder's side?
Ledergor's advice to marketers is really a test for the founder. A capable marketer picks a CEO who can hand over one number marketing can move, and fund it. If you aren't that CEO, even the best hire stalls. The question isn't whether the candidate is good, but whether you built a target they can hit.
Cite as: Etgar Shpivak, "What decides whether your first marketing hire works", shpivak.co.il, 17 December 2024. https://shpivak.co.il/writing/first-marketing-hire-startup
Quotes attributed to Udi Ledergor (Chief Evangelist & former CMO, Gong) are from their conversation on Founders' Marketing Compass, not Etgar Shpivak's words.