Startups vs late-stage startups (pre IPO) vs public companies - how do CMO profiles differ across these companies?

The earlier stage you go, the more you are acting as a mechanic who is building a custom vehicle. You’re trying to find market fit and you’re doing a lot of testing. You have a lot of theories, but little data. 

You may fail 8/10 times, but when you do get a data point it’s exciting! It can be very stressful, and even lonely. 

Especially if you came from a later-stage company, and your team goes from 8 to 1 per day, you will feel that difference. You may try to outwork the problem and work 20 hrs a day if you don’t prioritize correctly. It can be very stressful, but also rewarding.

Being the head of marketing at an early-stage company means that mistakes can feel more personal. It’s just you, and this makes mistakes feel more personal. 

At a larger org, job #1 is to be an amazing leader. It’s your job to understand the problems at a high level, hire the right people, fire when necessary, and ensure that everyone is aligned. Job #2 is executive presence with the CEO, board, and peers. You are trying to figure out how to take things to the next level. And lastly, the problem set that you’re trying to solve. You’re not trying to find market fit - you are trying to go after a new market, region, etc - how do we figure out how to take things to a new level?

My role at a public unicorn company is radically different than when I was a marketer of 1 at a $10M company. When you’re at a small start-up you don’t have scalable systems or others to get the work done. You are in the thick of it, and it’s all hands-on. 

When you get to pre-IPO - you have a larger team and it’s more about how do you enable your team to do their best work? I’m less hands on day to day, and now my role is to provide guidance to pave the way, remove roadblocks, hire great people, and get out of the way. 

There are very few days where I'm creating content. The biggest question I think about now is how do I create a sustainable org that will get us to $2B+ in revenue? We want to be nimble, but we also need processes that stand the test of time.

I think it’s a super contributor vs how well you enable and hire your team. At our scale, my time tends to gravitate to where I can make the biggest impact. And from there, I trust my leaders to go execute on those things that I don’t have the bandwidth to be a part of. 

Because the teams are big, I work to be aligned with the CEO, COO, CRO and CCO and it’s a lot more stakeholder management, building cross functional relationships, and being aligned on what we are working towards.