One of the biggest mistakes technical founders make is hiring the wrong CMO or lead marketer for their startup. This can inevitably lead to other projects gaining market share and leaving the superior product behind. As a technical founder, it’s your job to build a great marketing team and systems so you can win.

That’s why I wrote up this ultimate guide to hiring web 3 marketers.

This is the person responsible for leading marketing strategy, managing your team, and hiring new superstars.  A good CMO will cost a pretty penny in either cash or equity, but can be absolutely game-changing.  They can literally be the difference between zero and hero.  A top level CMO could also lead BD strategy in a “Head of Growth” style role.  Hiring a CMO isn’t likely required in the very early stages of your project, but is essential as you start scaling and bringing your product to market.

This is the person that keeps the content machine churning.  A great first hire if you’re on a budget, they should be great at creating written content, including Twitter.  It’s vital they’re crypto native, and I like to find existing content creators with a following and offer them a job (which they’re looking for in a bear market).   I aim to look for someone who's both charismatic and a good writer.  Usually a good fit with a CMO supervising them.

A mid-level jack of all trades.  The difference between a CMO and a marketing manager is that the CMO can build their own team out easily and has far more experience.  However, a Marketing manager should be able to manage contractors/employees.  I suggest either hiring a CMO or a marketing manager early on, but hiring both is overkill until you start scaling.

This can vary based on the project, but typically is someone who focuses on building trust and loyalty amongst your community which leads to retention and growth.  Someone who is able to create fun real-life and virtual events, and enjoys bringing people together is a good fit for this.  For more early-stage startups, the community manager is also a marketing manager/content marketer, etc.  Usually, these roles overlap quite a bit.  

Discord mods are a relatively affordable, but overall important role. They are the first point of contact to your community. They need to learn and uphold your community values to ensure the overall health and well-being of your community. More experienced mods will also build and maintain bots in your server.

Pretty self-explanatory but essential if you’re creating a ton of video content.  At Builder Capital, we have a full-time video editor to ensure we keep pushing out content on our Twitter and YouTube.  A part-time editor may be enough for your needs, and this is not an expensive role to fill.

Similar to video editors, most projects will only need a part-time graphic designer. That being said, I would invest in a higher-end designer to build out the brand book first, and then a more affordable designer that will follow the brand colors day to day.  Obviously, if you are well funded it may make sense to just hire a full-time designer who’s top-notch. GoGoPool is an example of a brand that’s doing design extremely well.

Similar to content marketer but more specialized in the written word.  A “Threadoor” is an even more specialized role, which is someone who specializes in creating excellent Twitter threads.  

You need to determine what your budget is.  If you’ve just raised a $1m pre-seed, it doesn’t make sense to hire more than 1 marketer (or just a combined BD/Marketer person) and then hire contractors as needed on a part-time basis.  On the other hand, if you’ve $6 to 7m, it makes sense to hire a heavy hitting CMO/Marketing director to start building a strong community and brand around the project.

If you’re building an infrastructure project that’s in stealth, you really don’t need to do any marketing very early on.  On the other hand, if you’re building a consumer facing Dapp, it makes sense to kick off growth asap, even pre-product.  As a general rule, web 3 games, B2C projects, L1s, and L2s are all projects where early community growth is essential, including for raising larger series A and B rounds.  Don’t be the founder that thinks marketing and BD doesn’t matter - As a VC I’ve seen many a hyped round that is successful despite poorer tech than competitors.  

The earlier it is, the less you need marketing resources.  By Series A even more technical startups usually want to have a strong marketing function built out.

The feel of your brand can also determine the hires you make.  If you’re a tech heavy infrastructure project, you may want to focus on hiring technical writers and developer relations people (versus a community manager).  On the other hand, if you’re a consumer NFT marketplace startup, hiring great Twitter threadors and video content creators makes sense.  

My view of hiring is that it’s a marketing funnel in many ways.  You want to attract the best candidates, and to do this you need both quality and quantity.  This starts with the job post, which is your landing page.  Most job posts do a horrible job of making people want to work at their startup, because they’re usually boring job descriptions.   

What are you doing that’s different from every other startup and your competitors?  You want to emphasize that in your job description.

The first sentence should call out your ideal candidate based on what they’re passionate about and interested in.  E.g “Are you a marketer who truly believes in the original cypherpunk privacy vision and wants to make this a reality.”  

Let them know what to expect in terms of culture.  Is it a hardcore tech focused startup with people who are crazy passionate about the end goal?  Or is it a work hard, play hard NFT startup where you degen into new NFT mints at work together.  This helps attract people who vibe with your culture.  

Talk about the benefits, whether it be paid vacation leave, flexible hours, free Spotify, or even a co-working allowance.  Show them the benefits of working with you.

Understand the difference between the two and clearly define them.

Make sure to post your job post in your own Twitter/Discord project.  Your own community is going to have the people who are most passionate about working with you!

There are a variety of free and paid web 3 job boards where we post our jobs which lead to some solid inflow.  Here’s the list: 

Free job boards:

• Grackle HQ

• Jobs3

• The Product House

• RooTroop

• Jobs OffChain Global (Telegram Group)

Paid job boards:

• Web3 Career ($199)

• Bankless ($750-$950)

• Not Boring Pallet ($250-$1000)

• DeFi Edge (Up to $1000)

Gaming Job Boards (For web 3 games):

• Games-Career ($95+tax)

• Hitmarker ($50+)

• Games Industry ($320)

• Serious Games Jobs ($50+)

• r/gameDevClassifieds (Free)

A more expensive but solid option.  Usually, they charge 20-25% of the first year's base salary.  They can be great as a supplemental source, where if they refer someone truly excellent, it’s worth the fee.  Also, usually, they have a 3-month period if the candidate doesn’t work out, they’ll refund the placement fee.

Don’t underestimate the importance of meeting people face to face.  I’ve personally sourced some really great candidates at conferences, or through friends of people I’ve met at conferences.  In person events in crypto have a very high ROI both in terms of business development as well as finding excellent people to bring onto your team.  I credit this to how community focused crypto is and how strong of a “us” mentality there is in crypto (The rest of the world thinks we’re crazy).

The first interview is to get a feel for their background, experience, and salary expectations.  Usually around 20-30 minutes long.   You will disqualify 60-70% of candidates at this stage.  

For candidates who we like, we’ll set them up with a paid task depending on the role we’re hiring for.  For example, if we are hiring for a content marketer, we’ll have them make a few types of content (Twitter thread, video, long-form blog post) for the portfolio company we’re hiring for.  This gives us a real life way to test their skillset. We always pay people for these tasks as they require a fair bit of time.  

At this point, you like their paid task, and you go into another in-depth interview.  This is where salary negotiations typically happen.  You want to dive DEEP into past work experiences, ask for at least one reference that you can talk to, and really try to vet for any potential red flags.

If there are still doubts, you can do a full-team interview where everyone who will be working with the new hire can ask their own questions.  This is a great way to double-check the culture fit with your existing team members.  Also, your team will likely ask questions you didn’t think of asking.

I like to start with a 1 month contract before hiring a full-time role.  This keeps it easy and simple for everyone, and de-risks it for your company as well.  By one month it’s either a “Fuck yes” or a “No”.  If it’s somewhere in the middle they’re likely not the right fit.  If you have to think more than a few seconds about the decision, it likely means they’re not a great fit for your company.

I hope you enjoyed that long read on how to hire web 3 marketers!  This is the same process we follow for Builder Capital, as well as for portfolio companies like GoGoPool, Elemental Raiders, Helika, and others!  

If you’re looking for help with hiring web 3 marketers or building a web 3 marketing machine, please shoot us a DM on Twitter!  We’re happy to jump on a call and help you think through some ways you can set this up for your project.  

One of the biggest mistakes technical founders make is hiring the wrong CMO or lead marketer for their startup. This can inevitably lead to other projects gaining market share and leaving the superior product behind. As a technical founder, it’s your job to build a great marketing team and systems so you can win.

That’s why I wrote up this ultimate guide to hiring web 3 marketers.

This is the person responsible for leading marketing strategy, managing your team, and hiring new superstars.  A good CMO will cost a pretty penny in either cash or equity, but can be absolutely game-changing.  They can literally be the difference between zero and hero.  A top level CMO could also lead BD strategy in a “Head of Growth” style role.  Hiring a CMO isn’t likely required in the very early stages of your project, but is essential as you start scaling and bringing your product to market.

This is the person that keeps the content machine churning.  A great first hire if you’re on a budget, they should be great at creating written content, including Twitter.  It’s vital they’re crypto native, and I like to find existing content creators with a following and offer them a job (which they’re looking for in a bear market).   I aim to look for someone who's both charismatic and a good writer.  Usually a good fit with a CMO supervising them.

A mid-level jack of all trades.  The difference between a CMO and a marketing manager is that the CMO can build their own team out easily and has far more experience.  However, a Marketing manager should be able to manage contractors/employees.  I suggest either hiring a CMO or a marketing manager early on, but hiring both is overkill until you start scaling.

This can vary based on the project, but typically is someone who focuses on building trust and loyalty amongst your community which leads to retention and growth.  Someone who is able to create fun real-life and virtual events, and enjoys bringing people together is a good fit for this.  For more early-stage startups, the community manager is also a marketing manager/content marketer, etc.  Usually, these roles overlap quite a bit.  

Discord mods are a relatively affordable, but overall important role. They are the first point of contact to your community. They need to learn and uphold your community values to ensure the overall health and well-being of your community. More experienced mods will also build and maintain bots in your server.

Pretty self-explanatory but essential if you’re creating a ton of video content.  At Builder Capital, we have a full-time video editor to ensure we keep pushing out content on our Twitter and YouTube.  A part-time editor may be enough for your needs, and this is not an expensive role to fill.

Similar to video editors, most projects will only need a part-time graphic designer. That being said, I would invest in a higher-end designer to build out the brand book first, and then a more affordable designer that will follow the brand colors day to day.  Obviously, if you are well funded it may make sense to just hire a full-time designer who’s top-notch. GoGoPool is an example of a brand that’s doing design extremely well.

Similar to content marketer but more specialized in the written word.  A “Threadoor” is an even more specialized role, which is someone who specializes in creating excellent Twitter threads.  

You need to determine what your budget is.  If you’ve just raised a $1m pre-seed, it doesn’t make sense to hire more than 1 marketer (or just a combined BD/Marketer person) and then hire contractors as needed on a part-time basis.  On the other hand, if you’ve $6 to 7m, it makes sense to hire a heavy hitting CMO/Marketing director to start building a strong community and brand around the project.

If you’re building an infrastructure project that’s in stealth, you really don’t need to do any marketing very early on.  On the other hand, if you’re building a consumer facing Dapp, it makes sense to kick off growth asap, even pre-product.  As a general rule, web 3 games, B2C projects, L1s, and L2s are all projects where early community growth is essential, including for raising larger series A and B rounds.  Don’t be the founder that thinks marketing and BD doesn’t matter - As a VC I’ve seen many a hyped round that is successful despite poorer tech than competitors.  

The earlier it is, the less you need marketing resources.  By Series A even more technical startups usually want to have a strong marketing function built out.

The feel of your brand can also determine the hires you make.  If you’re a tech heavy infrastructure project, you may want to focus on hiring technical writers and developer relations people (versus a community manager).  On the other hand, if you’re a consumer NFT marketplace startup, hiring great Twitter threadors and video content creators makes sense.  

My view of hiring is that it’s a marketing funnel in many ways.  You want to attract the best candidates, and to do this you need both quality and quantity.  This starts with the job post, which is your landing page.  Most job posts do a horrible job of making people want to work at their startup, because they’re usually boring job descriptions.   

What are you doing that’s different from every other startup and your competitors?  You want to emphasize that in your job description.

The first sentence should call out your ideal candidate based on what they’re passionate about and interested in.  E.g “Are you a marketer who truly believes in the original cypherpunk privacy vision and wants to make this a reality.”  

Let them know what to expect in terms of culture.  Is it a hardcore tech focused startup with people who are crazy passionate about the end goal?  Or is it a work hard, play hard NFT startup where you degen into new NFT mints at work together.  This helps attract people who vibe with your culture.  

Talk about the benefits, whether it be paid vacation leave, flexible hours, free Spotify, or even a co-working allowance.  Show them the benefits of working with you.

Understand the difference between the two and clearly define them.

Make sure to post your job post in your own Twitter/Discord project.  Your own community is going to have the people who are most passionate about working with you!

There are a variety of free and paid web 3 job boards where we post our jobs which lead to some solid inflow.  Here’s the list: 

Free job boards:

• Grackle HQ

• Jobs3

• The Product House

• RooTroop

• Jobs OffChain Global (Telegram Group)

Paid job boards:

• Web3 Career ($199)

• Bankless ($750-$950)

• Not Boring Pallet ($250-$1000)

• DeFi Edge (Up to $1000)

Gaming Job Boards (For web 3 games):

• Games-Career ($95+tax)

• Hitmarker ($50+)

• Games Industry ($320)

• Serious Games Jobs ($50+)

• r/gameDevClassifieds (Free)

A more expensive but solid option.  Usually, they charge 20-25% of the first year's base salary.  They can be great as a supplemental source, where if they refer someone truly excellent, it’s worth the fee.  Also, usually, they have a 3-month period if the candidate doesn’t work out, they’ll refund the placement fee.

Don’t underestimate the importance of meeting people face to face.  I’ve personally sourced some really great candidates at conferences, or through friends of people I’ve met at conferences.  In person events in crypto have a very high ROI both in terms of business development as well as finding excellent people to bring onto your team.  I credit this to how community focused crypto is and how strong of a “us” mentality there is in crypto (The rest of the world thinks we’re crazy).

The first interview is to get a feel for their background, experience, and salary expectations.  Usually around 20-30 minutes long.   You will disqualify 60-70% of candidates at this stage.  

For candidates who we like, we’ll set them up with a paid task depending on the role we’re hiring for.  For example, if we are hiring for a content marketer, we’ll have them make a few types of content (Twitter thread, video, long-form blog post) for the portfolio company we’re hiring for.  This gives us a real life way to test their skillset. We always pay people for these tasks as they require a fair bit of time.  

At this point, you like their paid task, and you go into another in-depth interview.  This is where salary negotiations typically happen.  You want to dive DEEP into past work experiences, ask for at least one reference that you can talk to, and really try to vet for any potential red flags.

If there are still doubts, you can do a full-team interview where everyone who will be working with the new hire can ask their own questions.  This is a great way to double-check the culture fit with your existing team members.  Also, your team will likely ask questions you didn’t think of asking.

I like to start with a 1 month contract before hiring a full-time role.  This keeps it easy and simple for everyone, and de-risks it for your company as well.  By one month it’s either a “Fuck yes” or a “No”.  If it’s somewhere in the middle they’re likely not the right fit.  If you have to think more than a few seconds about the decision, it likely means they’re not a great fit for your company.

I hope you enjoyed that long read on how to hire web 3 marketers!  This is the same process we follow for Builder Capital, as well as for portfolio companies like GoGoPool, Elemental Raiders, Helika, and others!  

If you’re looking for help with hiring web 3 marketers or building a web 3 marketing machine, please shoot us a DM on Twitter!  We’re happy to jump on a call and help you think through some ways you can set this up for your project.