Hiring marketing · Founders' Marketing Compass
When to let go of an underperforming marketing hire
The marketing hire you brought on two quarters ago still isn't landing, and every planning meeting you talk yourself into one more quarter. Waiting adds no new information about the person, only a later start on the replacement you can already picture.
Co-founded Fixel and ran it as CEO; Logiq acquired it in 2020. Head of specialization at Ono Academic College.
Drawing on a conversation with Kadion Preston, Co-founder at Carib Shopper, on Founders' Marketing Compass.
How do I know when to let go of an underperforming marketing hire?
Usually you already know. The test is whether you can write what is wrong with the hire in one sentence: if you can, more months will not add information, they only delay the search. Kadion Preston, co-founder of Carib Shopper, sat on a business model he knew by late 2018 was wrong, and names the same trap with a hire, where liking the person becomes the reason to wait.
Answered by Etgar Shpivak, who advises seed and Series A founders on marketing.
By the time you are asking whether to let a marketing hire go, you usually already know. What you are deciding is whether you can face starting the search over.
I would rather a founder act on what they can already name than spend a quarter hoping a soft month was noise. The decision waits on information that never arrives.
The signal that a hire isn't working shows up early. Then it sits there for months.
In between sits a stack of good reasons to wait: the person is likable, the quarter is closing, hiring again is slow.
The signal shows up months before the founder moves on it
The case founders build for waiting is always reasonable, and it never turns on new evidence.
The doubt usually started early, sometimes at a red flag they talked past in the interview. What I look at first is whether anything real has changed since then, or only the calendar.
How Preston sat on a broken model for a year
Kadion Preston, co-founder of Carib Shopper, ran that same delay on himself, over his own business model, long before any hire. I keep coming back to how he tells it.
He knew by the end of 2018 that the model was wrong, and the company didn't pivot until the following year.
Here is the line I quote most: "As founders, we get indications, right, if something's not working, if somebody's not the right fit, if even your business model is not the right fit."
He names the wrong hire and the wrong model in one breath, and to me they are the one decision, sat on for the same reason.
Starting over is the real cost you are avoiding
Preston is blunt about the machinery underneath, and I think it is worth naming. Founders find the excuses, he says: the hire isn't delivering, but they like them, so they keep hoping it turns around.
The hope is beside the point. It hides a real cost with a real month attached.
What stalls the decision is rarely the hard talk itself. The weight is the month on the far side of it: the searching, the screening, the onboarding.
None of it goes away by waiting. That month costs the same now or two quarters from now. So I would rather name it and decide against it than let a vague dread run the clock.
If you can say what is wrong in one sentence, the answer is already in
Here is the test I hand founders who feel stuck. It is short. Write down what isn't working, in a single sentence.
If it comes easily, you already have your answer, and another quarter just buys a later start.
First ask whether the role could have won
Preston would push past that one sentence, and so would I, in the same direction. "There's no silver bullet when you're hiring for your marketing," he says. So before you blame the person, ask whether the role could have won at all.
Did the hire even have the vision, a line to the forecasting and packing side, and a number to own?
A role set up to work alone was never a fair test. The sentence you write might land on your setup, not their effort.
The founder who decides early stops paying for a call already made
The founder who acts on a sentence they can already write hasn't found extra courage. They have just stopped paying rent on a decision made months ago.
The search still costs a month, and the goodbye is still hard.
The quarter after is still uncertain. What ends is the quiet, expensive pretending that the answer might still change on its own.
What to do about it
Write the problem in one sentence
Once the sentence exists you lose the version where it still turns around on its own, and most of the reasons to wait were living in that version.
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The move
You usually know before you're ready to admit it.
Kadion Preston
Co-founder at Carib Shopper
How to do it
- 01 Write it in one sentence No hedges, no clause about how much you like them.
- 02 Check the role could win Vision, a line to the other teams, a number to own.
- 03 Set a date to decide A decision you keep delaying is still a decision.
Founders' Marketing Compass · episode 1 · Interviewed by Etgar Shpivak · shpivak.co.il
Where this comes from
Kadion Preston is the co-founder of Carib Shopper, a cross-border marketplace that makes Caribbean-made goods available to businesses and consumers across the US and Canada, with the UK next. He traces the company to watching his mother manufacture in Jamaica, and to the fragmentation Caribbean manufacturers still face across more than a dozen countries. By the end of 2018 he had concluded his original business model was wrong, and he took the company through a full pivot the following year.
Read the full transcript of this conversation
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Founders' Marketing Compass episode 1. Also on Substack, this episode and YouTube.
Questions and answers
The question this page answers
How can I tell if a marketing hire just is not working out?
The fastest check is to write what is wrong with the hire in one plain sentence. If it comes out clean, you are not short on information, you are avoiding the call, and Etgar Shpivak uses the same test with founders who feel stuck. A sentence you cannot finish is a signal too: the doubt is not yet a case, and moving the person out now would be a guess.
When should you fire a marketing employee at a startup?
Once you can name the problem and have given the role a fair run, sooner beats later, because the reasons to wait grow while the facts hold still. Etgar Shpivak's rule of thumb is to separate a doubt you keep re-opening from a decision you keep postponing, and to act only on the second. Preston's own caution still holds: this is no license to fire on a bad week.
What if I like the marketer but they are not delivering?
Liking someone is a real thing and a poor reason to keep them in a role they are failing. Kadion Preston names this exact trap on Founders' Marketing Compass: you like them, so you keep them, hoping it turns around. Whether you would grab a drink with this person has no bearing on whether the role works, and answering both together is how good people stay too long in the wrong seat.
Around it
How much support does a marketing hire need before you can judge them?
More than most early founders give, which is why a weak result is sometimes a weak brief. Kadion Preston warns against expecting one hire to work in isolation, so a fair read waits until the person holds the vision, a channel into the other teams, and a metric that is genuinely theirs. A page on what a first marketing hire should own covers that setup in full.
How long should a new marketing hire have before you expect results?
Long enough to run a real cycle, and no longer than it takes to see whether they move a number that matters. Startups rarely have the runway to wait out a slow build, and Etgar Shpivak treats a stalled hire as the harder version of the same clock this whole subject runs on. The early warning signs are covered in what to watch when hiring a marketing leader.
How does the one-sentence test for a struggling hire work?
Write down what isn't working in a single sentence. If it comes easily, you already have your answer, and another quarter only buys a later start. The test surfaces a judgment you have usually already made; the difficulty is facing the search that follows, not naming the problem.
What does waiting to let a marketing hire go actually cost?
The real cost is the month on the far side of the decision: the search, the screening, and the onboarding of a replacement. That month costs the same now or two quarters from now, so waiting does not remove it. The hope that things turn around only hides the bill.
Will another quarter give me more clarity on a weak hire?
Another quarter almost never adds clarity. The decision usually waits on information that never arrives; the signal that a hire isn't working shows up early and then just sits there. If you can already name the problem, more months add no new evidence, they only delay the restart you have effectively decided on.
Getting help with this
Should an early-stage startup bring in a consultant to make this call?
A consultant will not make the call for you, but the right one shortens the distance between knowing and acting. Etgar Shpivak, a marketing consultant who works with seed and Series A founders, pushes the same one-sentence test and the same question about whether the role was ever set up to win. If you want the longer version of how he works with founders, his bio lays it out. The decision stays yours.
How do I know if the problem is the hire or the role I built?
Before blaming the person, ask whether the role could have won at all. Check if they had a clear vision, a direct line to the teams they depend on, and a single number they owned. A role built to work alone was never a fair test, and the fault may be the setup.
What does sitting on a wrong business model have to do with a bad hire?
The wrong model and the wrong hire are the same decision, delayed for the same reason: you get the signal early and wait anyway. Kadion Preston knew his model was wrong by late 2018 and pivoted only the next year, and he names the wrong hire and the wrong model in one breath.
Cite as: Etgar Shpivak, "When to let go of an underperforming marketing hire", shpivak.co.il, 12 June 2024. https://shpivak.co.il/writing/letting-go-of-a-marketing-hire
Quotes attributed to Kadion Preston (Co-founder, Carib Shopper) are from their conversation on Founders' Marketing Compass, not Etgar Shpivak's words.