Over my 12 years navigating the startup landscape—as a founder, investor, and tech marketer—I’ve observed a pattern that often spells the difference between success and failure. This distinction lies in the ability to achieve sustainable revenue faster versus wasting valuable time and resources – resources for which startups are accountable to their stakeholders.

Sometimes, these stakeholders are venture capital firms and early-stage investors. However, quite often, it’s friends or family who have invested their trust and finances, adding an even deeper layer of responsibility and concern.

Tackling Symptoms Versus Root Cause

It starts with a visionary founder, an innovative idea, and a team of talented product managers and developers, all tirelessly working to turn that vision into reality – to find that elusive “product-market fit.” But then, a crucial realization dawns: this groundbreaking product won’t sell itself.

The scramble begins. “We need a website,” they say, “with a catchy logo and a tagline that resonates. ’Blue’ is a great color for B2B tech businesses, right? Let’s find a graphic designer. Maybe Fiverr has someone.” After several rounds of revisions and team disagreements, a compromise is reached. The result? A website that’s passable, but far from effective.

Then comes the next step: assembling a sales force. “Let’s hire some salespeople,” the team decides. “We’ll need an SDR and an Account Executive. We can’t afford to pay too much, so we’ll get some young and eager people and throw them into the fray and see what they come back with. They’re salespeople, after all; they’ll figure it out.” But without a clear strategy, even the most skilled sales team can struggle to make an impact, and the sales don’t pour in as envisioned.

The sales team, feeling the pressure, identifies what they believe is the root of the problem. “We need higher-quality leads,” they assert with conviction. “Our focus should be on selling, not on lead generation.” In response, the company decides to bring in a full-time Marketing Manager—a young, enthusiastic recent graduate with a degree in marketing, supported by a summer intern from a nearby college.

With high expectations, the company tasks this new marketing duo with a wide range of responsibilities: lead generation, demand generation, blog posts, webinars, social media, website updates, email marketing, and more. Given that a good tech company is always measuring the numbers, they also emphasize the importance of robust marketing metrics and analytics. “Let’s put the intern on it,” they say.

The Marketing Manager and intern eagerly take on the challenge, pouring their heart and soul into the role. However, despite their best efforts, the desired results fail to materialize. The sales team’s frustration grows as they continue to grapple with leads that don’t meet their expectations. The founder is just trying to stay above water and balance the everyday needs with preparing for the next fundraise and reporting to a board who is starting to lose faith. 

Meanwhile, the Marketing Manager feels increasingly isolated and misunderstood, with very little direction and questioning why the sales team can’t seem to convert the leads they’ve worked so hard to generate.

Beyond Tactics to Strategic Problem-Solving

The challenges faced by our startup illustrate a common misconception: that marketing is merely a collection of tactics aimed at generating leads and boosting sales. However, this narrow view overlooks the true essence of marketing, especially in the context of startups.

Marketing, at its core, is a critical business function that goes beyond tactics like lead generation and social media campaigns. It’s about deeply understanding the market, identifying the problems that the company’s product or service aims to solve, and facilitating the crafting of a point of view (POV) that sets the startup apart and as the leader in its category. This strategic approach to marketing involves, but is not limited to, the following:

Defining and Claiming the Category: Before diving into tactics, it’s crucial for startups to clearly define the category in which they operate. This involves understanding the competitive landscape, identifying the unique space the startup occupies and the problems it solves, as well as clearly articulating how it is different from existing solutions. Developing a good overarching POV is critical and should guide more than just messaging, positioning and marketing efforts. It will also help evolve the company business model and product offerings.

Problem-Solution Fit and Assumption Testing: Startups are built on assumptions about the market, the problem, and the solution. Finding the right problem-solution fit is the foundation of a successful startup. Part of marketing’s role is to rigorously test these assumptions through market research, customer interviews, and data analysis. This helps to keep the company focused on getting answers to the most important questions to ensure that the startup is addressing a genuine need with the right target market.

Strategic Go-to-Market Plan: Armed with a deep understanding of the market and a validated problem-solution fit, marketing can then work alongside the product and sales teams to develop a strategic go-to-market plan. This plan outlines how the startup will reach its target customers, communicate its value proposition, and ultimately achieve sustainable growth.

We will be exploring some of these concepts more deeply in future blog posts.

Ultimately, by embracing marketing as a strategic business function, startups can steer clear of the pitfalls associated with a purely tactical, ad-hoc approach to marketing and sales. It’s about more than just creating a website or generating leads; it’s about laying a solid foundation for long-term success in the market. This aspect of marketing, often well-understood by modern Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) in more established organizations, tends to be overlooked in the startup world.

While most CMOs and other strategic leaders bring invaluable expertise, their high price tags are usually beyond the reach of growth-stage startups. At this early stage, startups are often not ready for a full-time executive, and bringing one on board can lead to frustration on both sides. This is precisely where the concept of a Fractional Executive becomes invaluable. But that’s a topic for another discussion…