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How do you hire your first CMO ?

Aurelio
6 replies
Hi everyone! As Product creators or start-up founders, we're doing our best to scale our company and one pivotal milestone often comes up: hiring our first Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). This role is crucial as it transitions our marketing from foundational tactics to strategic, scalable campaigns. I've been doing my company marketing so far (and so good), but it's definitely not my job. I'm currently at this crossroad and curious about how others have approached this significant hire. How did you decide it was the right time to hire a CMO? What qualities and experiences did you prioritize in your candidates? And, how did you integrate them into your existing team to ensure a smooth and successful transition? Cheers,

Replies

Mustaasam Saleem
In my opinion, it depends on the founder's strengths and the company's growth stage. If one of the founders has a marketing superpower, they should oversee. However, if marketing isn't their expertise, it's wise to hire an industry expert as soon as the budget allows. This enables the founder to focus on their areas of strength, such as development, and ensures the company can scale quickly. As for hiring, I would prioritize candidates with a proven track record in scalable marketing strategies, team leadership, and industry expertise. To ensure a smooth transition, involve the existing team in the hiring process, and establish clear goals and KPIs.
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Yuki
I'm extremely unqualified to answer this question but ill take a stab since my mentor has been offered a CMO role at multi 8 figure valuation company. You probably already know this also, but I think it's pretty important to hire someone with a marketing trackrecord of growing small, unknown businesses on a budget (i.e. they aren't blowing venture funding & ideally they have bootstrapping experience). To me that shows they are resourceful/scrappy and can make the most out of every marketing dollar. I think hiring a seasoned marketer from a large company like Apple wouldn't make sense because the brand itself carries so much weight.
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Fabian Maume
Monitor your activation and retention metrics. Until you get good retention is will be quite inefficient to invest in marketing. Then I would recommend you to consider a fractional CMO or marketing junior with mentoring at the start to save on budget. I actually wrote a blog post on the topic: https://www.tetriz.io/blog/do-yo...
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Fabian Maume
@aureliovolle That is great. It can be a good time to hire some marketing people. If you are low on budget I recommend you to hire a junior and get him/her mentored.
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