Success: Found a marketing co-founder
Back in February, I posted here looking for a co-founder. I'm happy to announce that I found Matt Ames as my new co-founder focused on growth for Day Optimizer.
To learn more about Matt and how I found him, read my blog post about the announcement.
To learn more about my search, check out this Notion document that describes the 6-step process I developed for finding the right co-founder or watch my presentation at 1 Million Cups Asheville about the process.
I'm happy to answer any questions about the process for others who might want to try something similar. I still have notes I need to add to the Notion document, so consider it a work-in-progress.
Thanks for the extremely interesting blog post. It is insightful (most of them are) and informative (this is very rare).
I'm engaged in the marketing co-founder quest myself, for a project that is setup as a Zebra organization which is not the typical startup. It could be an advantage or not and I'd be interested to know if you have any advice for me. You can find more information in the announcement. This is very early stage, there are probably lots of room for improvement.
First off, I definitely think you should embrace your values and goals. If you don't find someone who is aligned with those, it'll be a bad match, and will cause you more pain than it'll be worth to bring on another co-founder. Whatever you do, be honest and authentic, so you can attract the right candidates and repel the wrong ones.
That said, based on looking at your post, my advice would be to clarify what you are looking for in "plain English".
Specifically, take out all the jargon and references and take the time to explain exactly what you are looking for, so potential candidates can quickly scan the text and decide they want to reach out to start a discussion. Much of what you've written requires either having your specific frame of reference, or following a bunch of hyperlinks to learn your frame of reference (which will then be inferred, rather than explicit).
For instance, "You can bring to Hostea what Marko brought to Plausible" will be meaningless to 99% of your potential candidates. To figure it out, they have to follow the hyperlink, read a long blog post, then try to infer what you meant by "what Marko brought to Plausible" (since, while written by Marko, the post doesn't mention him at all).
Similarly, while I've been on the Zebras Unite mailing list for a while now, I still don't know what exactly defines a "Zebra organization". I just went to the Zebras Unite web site again and tried to figure it out, and still don't know. I resonate with some of the statements made, which is why I signed up, but the definition is still murky to me.
So rather than say the project is setup as a Zebra organization—or that you want someone who is more attracted to "zebras" than "unicorns"—take out the jargon and explain exactly what you mean by that. Perhaps that is that you don't plan on raising outside money. Perhaps you have a co-op structure that allows members to share in the revenue from the company. Perhaps it's something else.
I am biased, because it's what I did, but I would recommend taking the time to create a full co-founder landing page. You can see the one I created here.
Creating a co-founder landing page:
I spent a significant amount of time introspecting to figure out who I wanted (without being too restrictive) and how best to communicate the opportunity, including having multiple people review the site to ensure it was clear and would attract/repel the right type of people. Only then did I take the time to push it out through various channels to find that person.
It would also be useful to work on the latter parts of the pipeline to help inform your earlier parts. So figure out how you'll evaluate and vet candidates, and then can bring clarity to how you might search for them and attract them.
Some things I did that I can recommend:
I could go on, but this reply is getting long enough. Hope some of that is helpful, and good luck in your search!
I'm extremely grateful for this very constructive criticism. I'll follow your advice and reword the post accordingly.
And avoid using Zebra as it only resonates with people who already took the time to figure out what it is about. Coincidentally a long time member of a cooperative that qualifies as being a Zebra asked me yesterday: what is a Zebra. So... if even people who work for Zebra don't know about it, this is not the best word/concept for recruiting a co-founder ;-)
My newest SaaS is way too tiny to support a marketing co-founder.
However, I'd really value (and pay for!) a weekly meeting with the right Marketing Coach.
Would you use the same methods to find a paid Marketing Coach? What would you do differently?
Size isn't the metric that determines whether your startup might need a marketing co-founder, its potential is (and your personal goals).
Co-founders are paid in equity in the early days, so it's more of a question of whether you want to give up the equity and if you can convince someone a big enough opportunity exists for them to join to earn that equity.
However, a marketing coach may be the valid path for you. I wouldn't use the same process as finding a co-founder.
Personally, if I were looking for a marketing coach, I would start by searching on Clarity.fm or a marketing-specific site like MarketingHire.
You could also reach out to startup marketing agencies and ask them if they would be willing to play that roll. Demand Maven and Shoestring Services are two that come to mind.
Good luck!