Every founder between $2M and $5M reaches the same inflection point.

The business is growing, but the founder is oftentimes still the bottleneck.

They're managing content, answering support tickets, managing fulfillment, developing product, negotiating with suppliers, and somehow trying to "focus on growth" in between everything else.

The obvious next step is to hire.

The question is what role.

Many founders at this stage hire a marketing manager.

Someone to "own marketing" and free up the founder's time.

It feels like the responsible move.

Get someone strategic who can think about the big picture while you focus on operations.

Here's the problem:

A marketing manager at a $2 to $5M brand usually becomes a generalist who does a little bit of everything and doesn't move any single metric meaningfully.

They end up managing agencies, reviewing reports, and attending meetings.

Valuable coordination work, but not the kind of hire that changes your growth trajectory.

The hire that actually moves the needle for most brands at this stage is less glamorous and more specific.

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Start With the Constraint, Not the Org Chart

Before you write a job description, answer two questions.

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Question 1: Where are you spending the most time on things you're the worst at (or enjoy the least)?

Do a time audit for one week. Track how you spend every hour.

At the end of the week, categorize your time into three buckets:

High leverage and enjoyable: the work that only you can do and that directly drives revenue or strategic decisions.

Low leverage and necessary: the work that has to get done but doesn't require your specific expertise (bookkeeping, customer support, inventory management, packaging).

Low leverage and draining: the work that takes your time AND your energy and could be done better by someone else.

The third bucket is your first outsource or hire. Getting this work off your plate doesn't just free up hours. It frees up mental bandwidth, which is usually the more valuable resource.

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Question 2: What is the single biggest constraint preventing growth right now?

For most e-commerce brands at $2 to $3M, the answer falls into one of two categories:

Category A: Demand is the constraint. You have a great product, strong reviews, solid unit economics. The only thing holding you back is getting more people to discover you. You need more eyeballs, more awareness, more top-of-funnel activity.

Category B: Operations is the constraint. You're frequently out of stock, your fulfillment is slow, customer support is overwhelmed, or your product quality is inconsistent. You have enough demand but you can't serve it well.

If you're in Category B, your first hire should address the operational bottleneck: a fulfillment manager, an operations coordinator, or a customer service lead. No amount of marketing will fix a business that can't deliver on its promises.

If you're in Category A (which is where most $2 to $3M brands with decent products land), the hire is about creative and content.

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Why the Answer Is Usually Creative, Not Strategy

I talk to dozens of brands every month.

The ones that are growing fastest all share one trait: they produce a high volume of diverse creative.

More creative means more ads to test, which means more chances to find winners.

It means more organic content, which builds awareness without ad spend.

It means more material for affiliates and influencers to amplify. Creative feeds every channel simultaneously.

The brands that stall at $2 to $3M almost always have the same bottleneck: the founder is the only person making content decisions, creative output is limited to 3 to 5 new pieces per month, and the social media & ad account is slowly dying of creative concentration.

The hire that fixes this is more specific than a marketing manager. It's one of three roles:

Option 1: A content creator. Someone who can shoot, edit, and publish content for both organic and paid. They sit inside your business, understand the product deeply, and produce 20 to 30 pieces per month. The raw volume alone will transform your ad account and your organic presence.

Option 2: A creative strategist. If you already have creators or freelancers producing content, but the output is inconsistent in quality and messaging, a creative strategist defines the briefs, angles, hooks, and formats. They don't produce the content themselves. They direct it and ensure everything aligns with what your ad data says is working.

Option 3: An affiliate/creator manager. If your product is well-suited to user-generated content (supplements, beauty, fitness, food), hiring someone to recruit and manage an army of external creators is often the highest-leverage move. One manager can coordinate 30 to 50 creators, each producing content that feeds your paid and organic channels.

All three roles solve the same problem: creative volume and diversity. The specific role depends on where you are today.

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Your Action Step This Week

If you're thinking about hiring, do the time audit first. One week. Track every hour. Then look at the data and ask:

1. What am I spending the most time on that someone else could do?
2. Is demand or operations my primary constraint?
3. If demand: how many new ad creatives did I produce last month?

If the answer to #3 is under 15, your first hire should be a creative role.

Not a marketing manager, not a strategist, not an analyst. Someone who makes things.

The brands that win at this level are the ones that produce the most creative, test it the fastest, and double down on what works.

Strategy matters, but output matters more.

Talk soon,
Andrej
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PS: If you're stuck between these three roles and not sure which fits your situation, reply with a quick description of your team and your biggest bottleneck. I'll tell you which hire I'd make first.

PPS: 6 months after hiring a 'marketing manager' →​