Developer tools are different. Your audience is technical, skeptical, and quick to spot inauthenticity. Marketing that works for a business app falls flat here. We want someone who has internalized what it feels like to be a developer evaluating a product, and who markets accordingly.
Can they prioritize ruthlessly?
Marketing has more surface area than any team our size can cover, and the leaders who fail try to cover it anyway. We want someone who can look at brand, demand gen, product marketing, community, and events, pick the few that matter for us right now, and say no to the rest without flinching. That’s not just execution discipline, it’s a strategic bet. Doing fewer things better is the whole game.
Do they know how to work with founders?
Founders have to move fast, often hold strong opinions, and need to think ahead of the market. Working well in that environment means knowing when to push back, being direct without being difficult, and building trust through good judgment rather than process. This person will spend a lot of time with our founding team and needs to thrive in that dynamic. Although to be honest we’re a pretty friendly founder team.
Can they market without the BS?
Our whole approach is that honesty outperforms hype with this audience. We want someone who finds buzzword marketing a little embarrassing and is genuinely better at the harder thing: making the real substance land. Show us a launch you’re proud of that didn’t oversell.
Do they still do the work?
The best marketing leaders we’ve met never stopped making things. They have opinions about the headline, they can write the post themselves when it matters, and they earn respect through judgment rather than a title on an org chart. If you can’t get in the weeds with the work, you’re going to have a hard time leading the people who live there.
Do they bring energy to the room?
Startups are hard. Building something from nothing is hard. Driving forward progress despite uncertainty is hard. Shitting on stuff is easy and just brings everyone else down. We have a high bar for quality but also a high bar for being constructive, positive, and excited about making things better. We’re meant to be having fun here.