I built the MVP. Now I have no idea how to market it….

For those of you who’ve been following along — first off, thank you. I’ve been building Probado, a platform that helps early-stage founders get structured, paid feedback on their MVPs from vetted testers. It’s affordable, customizable, and enhanced with AI that helps summarize insights and recommend improvements.

We’ve got now 100+ vetted testers onboarded, and the MVP is just about done.

But now I’m facing the part that honestly feels the hardest so far: marketing.

I’ve been trying to figure out where to start — and I still haven’t cracked it. We posted jobs for freelance marketers on Upwork, and I’ve been speaking to people on platforms like GrowthMentor, but I’m realizing I’m not even sure what kind of marketing help I need… or what I should be paying for it.

Some people quote $15/hr, others $150/hr. Should I be looking for a growth generalist? A content person? Paid ads? Partnerships? I’m building this alone and trying to avoid burning money just to learn obvious lessons the hard way.

So if you’ve grown a SaaS product from zero — or even just figured out the first few traction channels — I’d seriously appreciate any advice.

For those of you who’ve done this before:

• What’s the first kind of marketing help I should invest in?

• What’s reasonable to pay at this stage for someone who gets results?

• What actually worked for you in those earliest “pre-scale” weeks?

Appreciate any guidance — especially from those who remember how weird and unclear this part of the process can be.

— Baltazar