Ask HN: How to find a marketing co-founder? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to find a marketing co-founder?

17 pointsmark_sz19 comments

I'm a developer, working on a (saas) project.

I know that at some point I will need help of marketing person, but I know only developers.

So how to find a marketing co-founder?

Any advice will be appreciated.

Talk to your developers, friends, etc. Tell them briefly what you are doing, and what sort of help you think you need. Keep it general - you're working on the technology side, you think you'd benefit from a trusted associate on the business side. But try to lean people's thinking away from MBAs - and away from sales or marketing communication - and more to market analysis.

Do you or your developer friends know people who have built businesses before? Talk to them.

No matter who you talk to, get used to saying something like "I really appreciate your time, who else do you think I should talk to? Do you have their number? Can I use your name?"

Also try to talk to the people who might use your service. Give them a brief overview of the problem you are trying to solve, let them tell you how it might or does not fit in to their world. Listen, and listen between the lines. Then do it again. If they seem interested, ask them how much such a service would save them in time, effort, or other forms of money.

Do NOT change your service based on one or even ten conversations, not until you understand the story between the lines. At least not right away.

If you need a sounding board, rather than a marketing associate, ask some of your trusted friends, technical and non-technical, if you can buy them drinks or dinner a couple of times a month and share what you've learned.

Practice duck testing (cf recent HN articles): You should be able to explain the idea and what you've heard from others to a rubber duck.

thank you!

1. It's great that you are asking this question. Marketing is an essential part of any start up -- both from creating the product that the market wants and also in promoting it. As a marketer, it's not something I see enough of.

2. Try LinkedIn, startup networking events, social media (Twitter is great to see who is in your area), blogs, etc. You can ask for recommendations as well. Once you have money, start looking at public relations and marketing firms because they often know the industry better, dealing with multiple clients and a staff full of marketers.

Linkedin, go to local startup meetups or look on meetup for marketing groups that do meetups (there are TONS!).

If you have the connections ask your friends/colleagues/acquaintances for a referral to a marketer they know.

I'm a marketer and I focus on these channels heavily.

If you are able to manage well and are up for the challenge of negotiating, try one of the online co-founder matching sites. They match people from all over but the main issue is always finding someone that shares your passion and will work hard to make the startup live.

To whom is your product addressed? Might be good to find a co-founder connected to the market you're targetting. As a co-founder, even technical, you need to understand your users and you'll have to sell your product, so networking in your target segment is something you have to do. Double benefit if you find your marketing co founder while doing customer development.

Edit: grammar

Frequent marketing communities like moz.org, inbound.org, warriorforum etc and find a talented marketer. Reaching out is often a difficult but necessary thing to do.

I'm a marketer who is interested in learning about your SEO tool. At the very least I can give you feedback and ideas from a marketing perspective.

What do you want your marketing cofounder to do?

Focus on customers/networking/blog/social media etc.

well, one way would be to pick someone from the many blogs that end up here. choose someone that has successful projects in their past, and did their own marketing. choose someone that has projects that you like, and you are happy with their writing style and the way the present the project and themselves.

Could you give us some more information on your saas project? That might help figure out where to look.

It's (another!) on page SEO tool with few unique features. Not a revolution, just a tool to solve few issues.

One thing you could do is ask for marketing help at various forums. For e.g. you could post it here as another Ask HN - "Ask HN: Help me market xyz.com". Apart from getting plenty of good marketing ideas, you might find your business co-founder.

Other forums I would look at are the ones focused on SEO like inbound.org, growthhackers, trafficplanet, BHW, WF etc

Also, put your email ID and the link to your tool in your HN profile. I'm sure there are plenty of people in SEO here who will be happy to help.

good advice, thank you!

It depends. What kind of marketing help do you need for your project at this point?

Someone who could focus on everything (blog, landing pages, twitter etc.) except development, which is my thing.

Do you already have a marketing plan prepared? (And a business plan?)

Sort of - yes.

The reason I ask is to see where you are with the project. If you're serious about it, you'll need more than some ideas jotted on the back of a napkin, and starting from that point is considerably more work than if the business and marketing plans already existed.

I can recommend a few things, depending on what your plans and goals are and, at the very least, some direction. If you'd like to shoot me an email for privacy purposes, I'm at musgrove<at>webdesignpopd0tc0m.

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