marketing executive for startups, and how to find one

History is littered with examples where better technologies or vastly superior products did not end up dominating the marketplace. An established company with deep pockets can on occasion tolerate an unsuccessful product, although the company’s stockholders might beg the differ; however, for a startup company the success of the initial product is likely to be a life or death event. Ground-breaking technology is a start, but unless it can be productized into a solution that solves actual customer problems, the likelihood of success is minimal. The job of taking this new technology and effectively converting into a product that can be sold to consumers usually falls to a seasoned marketing executive. The problem is, finding one who is able to flourish and succeed in a startup environment is quite difficult, especially since most marketing executives are used to outsized budgets that tend to be available in large corporations. Good thing then that the Caltech Industrial Relations Center together in collaboration with Chris Halliwell have recently started the Technology Marketing Center, or TMC for short. The TMC website is easy on the eyes and has several useful resources including blogs, case studies, and executive interviews which are presented in audio format.

One of the latest interviews is titled: What VCs Want in a Marketing Executive with Charles Beeler and Patty Burke. Charles Beeler and Patty Burke are both associated with El Dorado Ventures, a venture capital firm that provides early-stage funding for technology companies, and present some useful information with regard to hiring a marketing executive for a startup. Topics that are discussed during the interview include: marketing differences between established and startup companies, interview tips for hiring marketing executives, the voice of the consumer process, common marketing issues, marketing tools, and common mistakes. The Q&A session is a little bit too short in my opinion but overall the interview provides some very interesting insight. There are several upcoming interviews that might be of interest as well, including one titled: Creating Market Leadership in China with Patrick O'Doherty from Analog Devices on September 25th at 10 am Pacific Time. All interviews are archived so that they can be replayed later, run about thirty minutes, and are freely available to the public – simply put, there is no reason you should be missing out on them.