

Ask HN: how do I hire a marketer for my technology startup? - flippyhead

We're hiring a marketing to help accelerate our growth by getting more people to our front door and then converting them to paying customers. I'd love some suggestions (or stories!) of how others have hired marketers for technology startups. What's been effective? What hasn't? What kinds of things should I be considering when interviewing?
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aorshan
As a Marketing student who has worked in a few different marketing jobs I
think there are a couple things you should be looking for.

First, as previously mentioned, please do not make your decision based on the
individual's social media followers. Instead, you might want to look at some
of the growth they've helped to engineer in their previous jobs. For example
if they tell you that they helped a company grow from 500 to 50,000 twitter
followers, that is pretty impressive. However, even then it is important to
take those numbers with a grain of salt. Ask how many were purchased vs
earned. Ask what specific techniques they used to gain those followers and how
they would apply those techniques to your company. Try to determine how much
impact that specific person had on the growth.

Second, just like many people suggest assigning a coding project to a
candidate to determine if they fit with the company's engineering style, you
can assign a project to a marketing candidate to see if the work they do fits
with what you're looking for. Ask them to write a sample blog post for you.
Ask them to write a sample email they would send to potential customers. Ask
them to outline some ideas they have for how to market your company and how
they would implement them.

Third, if you want to attract good marketers, please don't treat them like
second class citizens. There is a large resentment among many in the tech
community towards "Business" people and "Marketers". If you and your company
show similar resentments, the person you are interviewing will be turned off.

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ActVen
Keep this in mind: Their understanding of psychology, technology and
communication is much more important than how many followers they have on
social networks. Someone's social network activity is often misinterpreted as
being important in helping grow a company. That is really not the case in most
circumstances. Try to find someone who is up to speed on the latest tools, but
maintains a healthy level of skepticism to them. They need the ability to help
your potential customers become aware of and understand your product. There is
a flip side to this as well. A good marketer will be much more than just a
mouthpiece for your company. They should be able to communicate the needs of
the market back to you as well.

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flippyhead
Great advice. I need to find a way (as a developer) to assess technical
aptitude without resorting to technicalities

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kerryfalk
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the
product or service fits him and sells itself.” ~ Peter F. Drucker

Great marketers do that. If you're considering one branch of marketing,
Promotion and Marketing Communications in this case, you may be missing a
deeper opportunity.

Mar Comm is a tool of the trade and is a small part of good marketing, it's
the most outwardly visible however. If your quest is for a megaphone you may
have better luck seeking a PR or communications type person than a marketer.

If you're looking for someone with a holistic view towards marketing, want
them to drive your strategy, and do the heavy lifting then I'd advise finding
someone who is very experienced in marketing from a business development type
role to assist in identifying and selecting the right person for you.

That may not be the answer you're looking for but I don't think there's a
shortcut here that will be successful. We humans are terrible at assessing the
skill of others in a field we have no direct experience in.

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Chris_X
Look for someone who's a hustler. Someone who's not afraid to pick up the
phone and do cold calls.

Alternatively, find someone who can write good copy. You don't necessarily
need the person to be tech savvy as that's already covered.

From my experience you can get a lot more mileage from a copywriter. Your
website, your UI, your blog, your emails, your lost password reminder, even
social media - all of it can benefit greatly from good copy.

