Why Zero to One Marketing Requires an Entirely Different Approach
Building Companies and Marketing From Scratch
I have built companies from the very beginning, at the stage where the product, the audience, and the message are all being defined simultaneously.
When you operate in that space you quickly realize that zero to one marketing functions under an entirely different set of rules than what applies once a business has traction.
Before product market fit is established there is no stable foundation to plan against and every insight must be discovered through real-world interaction rather than assumed from theory.
Founders often want to implement complete marketing plans too early, envisioning reliable channels, structured content, predictable KPIs, and clear dashboards, but in early stage companies, particularly those generating less than five hundred thousand in revenue, these tools rarely behave the way they are intended.
Your market has not yet indicated what it actually values, and until that clarity exists, structured plans can create confusion and wasted effort rather than guidance.
In practice, early stage companies have a few things they need to establish before “marketing” starts:
What is your why?
Your product is going to change. The company name may change. The founders may change. But what remains will be your why. Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.
Identifying the ideal channels and where to find your audience
Without knowing where to find your ideal audience, any marketing effort will fall flat and likely be a waste of time and money. You may think you know where to find them, but at the beginning of a new company you really don’t. I suggest trying 2 or 3 different channels for at least 30 days to test-drive what appears to be the biggest win and then double down on just 1 or 2 key channels.
Refine your core messaging
Your narrative, your credo or manifesto will evolve in time, but I always suggest a “working manifesto” that acts as an anchor for the way you speak to your customer. If you start formal plans, big budget promotions, or paid media before you know what works, you’ll be throwing time and money away.
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
You don’t know anything when you launch a company. You think you know, but you don’t, and the faster you accept that, and that continual testing, refinement, and optimization are needed, the sooner you can get to the stuff that sticks.
Messaging that is not grounded in actual customer need will fail to engage, regardless of repetition or polish, so you’ll want to be analyzing social media engagement, newsletter clicks, website blog popularity–anything organic that you can track and get an idea of what seems to resonate.
Paid marketing spend will seldom produce results until the audience has signaled readiness, but it can be an early indicator of what doesn’t work. 😉
Making adjustments to your copy, the website design, your social media posts, and blogs will help you in the early months.
What you are looking for is directional information, not final conclusions.
Hold on Paid Marketing For The First Few Months
I never recommend spending on marketing until you have product market fit, but I do recommend paying a strategist to get your messaging, credo, and product positioning right. That’s because without those core elements, you are likely to get vanity metrics, aka people that do not buy (and never will).
Even if you have funding and early revenue, paid spend only provides meaningful insight once your fundamentals are in place, because demand cannot be bought.
Demand emerges when your product, story, and audience are operating in sync.
Once those are in flow, turn up the volume on paid spend.
0-1 Is A Beautiful Stage, When You Work With It
Zero to one marketing is not a smaller or simpler version of mature marketing, it is an entirely separate discipline that requires blending brand, product, and customer insight into a single continuous process.
Usually this needs to be guided by someone who understands the pace, uncertainty, and pattern recognition necessary at this stage. Please do not hire a marketer who has only worked with Fortune 500s with defined systems, a full team, and a big budget.
Early stage marketing requires patience, discernment, and a steady approach to observing signals that others might overlook.
I focus on this stage because I have built companies from this exact space and I understand how to transform uncertainty into clarity and what signals and glimmers indicate something might be working. (or, what is decidedly not working and should be dropped like a hot potato).
Early branding and marketing when done right turns early learning into meaningful progress. These insights prepare a company so that when scale is possible, more mature marketing can accelerate efficiently and effectively.
