How Do You Handle Marketing as a Solo Technical Founder?

I recently came across a question on Hacker News from a solo technical founder asking how other founders handle marketing.

He described a pattern that I think a lot of technical founders can relate to: build a product, post about it, get a handful of likes from friends, see a little organic traction, and then… nothing. Eventually, you go back to coding because at least you know what you’re doing there.

The frustrating part is that you know marketing matters. But if you don’t have revenue yet, hiring a marketer can feel like a huge risk, especially when you’re still trying to prove that people actually want your product.

So what do you do?

I think there are really two answers: learn marketing as a skill or delegate it. The right answer depends on the resources you have available right now, and those resources aren’t just money and time.

Learn Marketing as a Skill

I hate to break it to you, but there’s no way around it. If you’re a founder and don’t have the budget to hire someone to do your marketing, you need to take a crash course in Marketing 101.

Luckily, so many resources are available now that you don’t need to go back to school or become an expert in every marketing discipline. You just need to understand enough to make good decisions about your customer, positioning, message, and how you’ll reach people.

Here are two steps to get started.

1. Learn basic marketing concepts.

I’d keep this simple: learn customer behavior.

Once you understand your customers, a lot of the other marketing pieces start to fall into place. You’ll understand who they are, what they want, where they hang out online, what they’re looking for, and what problems they have.

You don’t need to memorize a bunch of marketing frameworks. Start by talking to your customers and paying attention to what they do, say, search for, and buy. The more you understand their behavior, the easier it becomes to figure out what to say, where to reach them, and how to position your product.

Be obsessed with your customers and forever curious about what they do outside your product, so you learn how to bring them into it.

Books to read

Here are a few books I’d recommend if you’re starting from scratch:

Start With Why by Simon Sinek: A useful introduction to thinking about the purpose behind what you’re building and how you communicate it.
Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger: Learn why certain ideas, products, and content spread through word of mouth and social sharing.
The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick: Learn how to have better conversations with potential customers and figure out whether people actually have a problem worth solving.

The goal isn’t to read 50 marketing books before you start marketing. Pick a few concepts, learn enough to understand them, and then put them into practice.

Videos to watch

Justin Welsh: Learn about LinkedIn, personal branding, and creating consistent content.
Alex Hormozi: Learn about content creation, offers, and his approach to the Creator Hour.
Alex Cattoni: Learn copywriting, messaging, and marketing.
Simon Sinek: Learn how to communicate the deeper reason behind what you’re building.
Y Combinator: Learn startup fundamentals, including finding customers, talking to users, getting traction, and growing your startup.

Pro tip: Prefer shorter, practical videos? I’m turning these blog posts into short videos where you can learn from other founders’ questions. Watch the videos on my YouTube channel.

What’s the fastest way to validate your startup idea?

2. Learn marketing on a specific channel or type of marketing.

You don’t have to be an expert at everything. As one founder on Hacker News said, he will never dance on TikTok, and I feel you.

I wouldn’t either. Well, I lied. I have danced on TikTok before.

The point is to figure out where your customers consume and engage with content. Once you know that, pick one channel and learn how content works there instead of trying to master every platform at the same time.

For example, you might ask yourself:

Are my customers actually here?
What type of content are they engaging with?
Is there a realistic path from attention to conversion?

Most importantly, can you sustainably invest in this for the next six months or year?

For me, that channel has been LinkedIn because my target audience is early-stage startup founders. Many founders share their journey, talk about their businesses, and consume business content on LinkedIn, so it made sense for me to focus there.

When I started, I took Justin Welsh’s LinkedIn course. It taught me how the algorithm works, which activities I should focus on beyond simply producing content, and how to write engaging stories. The biggest lesson for me was learning how to create stories instead of simply publishing information.

I ignored Facebook. I ignored Instagram.

I focused on learning LinkedIn and getting better at creating content there. You can read more about how I choose which marketing channel to focus on here: How to Choose Which Marketing Channel to Focus On as a Solo Founder.

For founders we work with, they start with SEO. SEO is a good way to get new users organically, and it is sustainable if you build it the right way. Content also compounds. One article can keep bringing new users every single month.

Delegate to AI or a Person

Learning marketing doesn’t mean you have to execute every marketing task yourself. Once you understand the strategy and know what needs to happen, you can delegate the parts you’re not good at, don’t enjoy, or simply don’t have time for.

There are several ways to do this, depending on your budget and how much control you want to maintain.

1. Use AI to help you delegate.

AI is especially useful for low-risk tasks that are repetitive, time-consuming, or simply not worth your attention. Some examples include:

Putting together keyword research
Scraping and organizing data
Repurposing content
Creating thumbnails and featured images

I personally don’t have the talent and patience to create images. Luckily, ChatGPT does a great job creating on-brand images.

I also use AI to help me find things I might want to write about. I have a Claude Cowork setup that searches the web for founder questions and sends them to Notion every Friday.

Then I can review the questions and choose the ones I actually want to answer, so I don’t have to stare at a blank screen trying to figure out what to write.

That’s actually how this post came about. Instead of asking AI to decide what I should say, I use it to find questions people are already asking, then bring my own experience and perspective to the answer.

Here are some things that ideally you shouldn’t fully delegate to AI:

Sending emails to customers: Keep a human involved, especially when the message could affect the customer relationship.
Handling sensitive customer conversations: Don’t fully automate conversations where empathy, context, or judgment matters.
Making important customer relationship decisions: AI can help you analyze the situation, but you should make the final decision.

My rule is simple: if the AI makes a mistake, will it be catastrophic? If the answer is yes, don’t fully delegate or automate the task.

AI can handle the tasks around your marketing, but it shouldn’t replace the parts that require your judgment as a founder. Just think of Batman. He has the Batcomputer. He has Alfred. He has drones.

But he doesn’t send the Batcomputer out to decide which villain he should care about. Some things are still Batman’s job.

Your marketing can work the same way. Let AI research keywords, gather questions, organize information, repurpose content, and draft copy. But understanding your customer, deciding what you want to say, and making important relationship decisions should still come from you.

AI should make you a better Batman, not replace Batman.

2. Hire a freelancer.

A freelancer can be a good option when you know what you need but don’t want to execute a specific task yourself. For example, you might know that you want to publish one blog post a week but don’t want to spend your time researching and writing it.

The advantage is that you can hire someone for a specific skill or deliverable without committing to a full-time employee.

However, I still recommend that the founder own the overall strategy, especially early on, when you’re still learning what your customers want.

Pro tip: Hire expert freelancers in the Philippines if you have a modest budget.

3. Hire a fractional marketing team.

A fractional marketing team makes more sense when you need more than one specific task handled. You might need strategy, content, distribution, and ongoing execution, but you’re not ready to hire a full-time marketing department.

The advantage is that you get more of a marketing function rather than just outsourcing individual tasks. Instead of coordinating several freelancers yourself, a fractional team can help you build and execute a more consistent marketing process.

If you have the budget to hire a marketer, I’d recommend having at least three months of runway. Building a marketing process and getting meaningful results takes time, and you don’t want to hire someone for a few weeks and then decide marketing doesn’t work because you haven’t seen immediate results.

Invest Time or Money

Ultimately, founders have two main resources to invest in marketing: time and money.

You might have plenty of time but almost no budget. You might have money but no time or mental energy because you’re already doing everything else in the company.

Invest time

If you have time but a limited budget, learning marketing yourself can be a good investment.

You don’t need to learn everything. Start with the basics (as we’ve discussed earlier), choose one channel, and gradually build your skills as you start applying what you’re learning.

The advantage of doing this yourself is that you build knowledge about your customers and market at the same time. You may eventually hire someone to execute your marketing, but early experience can help you make better strategic decisions later.

Personally, I think learning about marketing is time well spent. It’s a skill you’ll always need for your current startup and the next.

Invest money

If you have money but don’t have the time, mental energy, or interest to learn and execute marketing yourself, it may make more sense to delegate.

Depending on what you need, you could:

Hire a freelancer for a specific skill or deliverable.
Hire a fractional marketing team to handle strategy and execution.
Use AI tools or agents to handle repetitive marketing tasks.
Invest in systems that make your marketing easier to maintain.
Eventually hire an in-house marketer when the business is ready.

You can also combine these approaches. For example, you might spend time and money building AI agents to handle repetitive marketing tasks while hiring a freelancer or fractional marketing team for work that requires more judgment.

The answer depends on your startup, your resources, and what you actually want to spend your time doing. Ultimately, choose the solution that makes the most sense for your startup right now.

And honestly, find the solution that lets you sleep at night.

You Still Need to Understand Marketing

Some tech founders simply don’t want to deal with anything creative, and that’s totally understandable. You don’t have to become a marketer just because you’re a founder.

But I still encourage you to learn the basics of marketing strategy, even if you eventually plan to hire someone else to do most of the work. Understanding marketing helps you know what it can and can’t realistically accomplish, making it easier to make strategic decisions and avoid wasting money.

You don’t need to write every blog post, design every graphic, or run every campaign. You need to understand your customer, positioning, messaging, and overall strategy well enough to know whether the work you’re paying for makes sense.

You Don’t Have to Do It All Yourself

Marketing doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing decision. You don’t have to become a full-time marketer or hire an entire marketing team right away.

Start by learning enough to understand your customers. Then look at the work and decide what you should keep doing yourself, what AI can help with, and what makes sense to delegate to a freelancer or fractional team.

As your startup grows, that balance can change. You might start with lots of time and no money, then eventually have revenue but very little time, and your marketing approach should change with you.

The goal isn’t to do marketing perfectly. It’s to find a system that fits your resources and consistently gets your product in front of the right people.

Here are other questions from founders:

FAQs: Handling Marketing as a Solo Technical Founder

Does a technical founder need to learn marketing?

You don’t need to become a marketing expert, but understanding the basics can help you make better decisions about your customers, positioning, messaging, channels, and budget. It also gives you enough context to know what to delegate and what to keep owning as the founder.

Should I learn marketing or hire someone?

Start by looking at your available resources. If you have more time than money, learning marketing may make sense; if you have some budget but very little time or mental energy, hiring a freelancer or fractional team may be a better fit.

Can AI handle marketing for a startup?

AI can handle many repetitive, low-risk marketing tasks, including research, data collection, repurposing, and content assistance. However, I wouldn’t fully automate high-stakes customer communication or anything where an AI mistake could seriously damage your reputation or customer relationships.

How long should I give a marketer to get results?

Marketing takes time to establish, particularly when you’re starting from scratch. If you’re hiring a marketer or fractional team, budget for at least three months to establish workflows and test what works.