How Do You Think About Sequencing a Marketing Leader?

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

The first thing that i caution with is find somebody who has done this before, but not so many times and for so long that they're very far removed from actually doing any ice level work. So the way i think about it is, what type of marketer is most complimentary to the founders? And sometimes you have these already like beautiful websites and really delightful brands built out before a marketer even gets there. That's wonderful. You don't necessarily need to find a marketer who is super, super spiking on the creative dimension because you've solved for that internally. One of the founders has it. And so you can focus on a marketer that's more analytical, which is

Today’s episode is with Maya Spivak, the Head of Marketing at Mux, which is an API for developers to build video experiences. Maya recently joined Mux after five years at Segment, where she was the company’s second marketer and its Head of Global Brand Marketing and Communications, as well as a stint at Wealthfront as a marketing director.

In today’s conversation, she takes a magnifying glass to the core components of a startup’s marketing org. She starts by breaking down the three pillars of marketing roles — product, brand, and growth. She explains the leading indicators that your startup is ready to hire folks within each of these pillars — which starts with analyzing your sales motion and sizing up the founders’ strengths and weaknesses.

Next, Maya pulls back the curtain on how she architects interview loops for each of these different roles, and the unique capabilities that separate good candidates from great, must-hire folks. Finally, she reflects on her experience as one of the earliest marketing hires at Segment, and how she built the marketing org in the first couple of years to keep up with the shifting needs of the growing startup.

Today’s conversation is of course a must-listen for marketers, particularly marketing leaders and hiring managers that are trying to pluck out the best and the brightest to join their org. But there’s a ton for other folks to learn from this interview, which explains some of the nuances of startup marketing you may not fully appreciate.

You can follow Maya on Twitter at @papayamaya.

You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/firstround and twitter.com/brettberson