What's the earliest stage a startup should consider hiring a demand generation manager?

As soon as you have product-market fit determined. My recommended first three marketing hires, in order, are:

1. Product Marketing: to help with that product-market fit assessment. This must come first. Spending money on demand generation campaigns when there is no assurance of revenue afterwards is a recipe for disaster.

2. Demand Generation: to help build pipeline and close revenue. This is a good hire when it is time to pour gasoline on your fire and start scaling.

3. Marketing Operations: to build marketing infrastructure and report on what is working and not. A strong reporting capability early on will set you up for continual success and reduce data challenges farther down the road.

The earliest stage I typically recommend hiring a demand generation manager is when you have established product market fit and a solid understanding of your ideal customer profile (ICP). This can vary depending on your business.

If you haven’t reached this stage, I would consider more organic efforts as they take time to build and gain momentum. You can start laying the groundwork for this with less budget. If you start spending on paid efforts too fast you may surface the learning that your “top of the funnel” is running at a pace that doesn’t align with retention, engagement and revenue.