Wanted: Smart Generalists

In the early stages of a startup, founders recognize the value of a strong generalist. They’re the Jack (and Jacqueline) of all trades who solves problems, connects dots, and advances projects nobody else owns. What they lack in expertise, they make up for in passion and natural talent.

So it’s curious why so many founders seek out specialists for their first marketing hire (that, or an overqualified CMO).

I hear it all the time: “I need to hire the best [SEO/email/performance/demand gen/content] person out there. Know anyone?” 

If a founder isn’t super familiar or comfortable with marketing, it makes sense that they would want to lean into the parts that are easy to measure and evaluate ROI (SEO projects, email, digital advertising). But hiring a specialist off the bat in any one of these areas might be a mistake. That’s because the most important thing in the early stages of your company is experimentation, and specialists are—by definition—biased. You don’t know what your primary channels or levers for repeatable, predictable growth are yet, but a smart marketing generalist is the best option for getting you on the path to figuring that out.

The value of a generalist

I advise founders to search for a specific type of generalist that I call a “super individual contributor.” Super ICs are more capable early marketing team members than their specialist peers in a number of areas that are key in a company’s first years: 

• Impact-driven: Super ICs seek growth, not titles. They want a seat on a rocket ship and don’t much care which seat they get. They’re likely to ask, “What are the company’s top goals and how can I move the ball forward as much as possible?”

• Steep learning curves: Super ICs pursue the steepest learning curve possible, keeping laser-focused on moving the needle for the company. Because of this, they are excellent candidates to be future leaders of your organization (though, most likely in a function outside of marketing—more on that later).

• Self-starters: Super ICs get things done with minimal hand-holding. This is a critical trait for marketing at a high-growth startup because the most important activity early on is experimentation. 

• Agile: Like a Swiss Army knife, Super ICs come in handy in many different situations. They enjoy juggling different types of projects. They aren’t experts in any one area but competent in many—and they’re especially useful in an emergency.

• Problem solvers: Creative problem-solving is their superpower. A new challenge energizes them—as long as it’s something that will move the needle. 

• Translators: Because they are insatiably curious, they make excellent translators for disparate teams. They connect dots throughout the organization. This is important when you’re establishing buy-in across the organization for investing in marketing.

Generalists are most valuable in the early stages 

A key point here is that lack of marketing experience and specialization is a strength for a first marketing hire—as long as it’s a Super IC. You want someone who is unafraid and unbiased to run rigorous growth experiments to help you discover your growth channels, not just the ones they were most familiar with before they joined your unique startup.

Former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt said in reference to hiring during the early days, “a smart generalist doesn't have bias, so is free to survey the wide range of solutions and gravitate to the best one,” adding that too often, hiring managers tend to over-value industry experience and under-value strategic and intellectual flexibility.

Sheryl Sandberg is an excellent example of a Super IC who leveraged her intelligence and generalist skills to grow an early-stage company. When she first joined Google, she had practically no tech experience. She came from the world of politics and economics. She took an online sales strategy role and would eventually grow and lead the department from four to 4,000 people.

How to find them

I’m going to guess that you, brilliant founder, attended top schools, and this will be easy to follow. But if not, put yourself in the shoes of a straight-A student. I’m not saying good grades necessarily correlate with “smarts” here, but chances are if you got straight As in school, went to a top university, then it’s likely your first job was at an elite institution, in an industry that many would consider prestigious.

Silicon Valley has become an elite institution and the brightest young minds are curious about startups. Some of them have taken the leap, while others are waiting (in finance, law, medicine, etc.) for opportunity to knock. That’s where you come in.

Reach out and share your company mission and vision. Show them the high caliber of talent on your team. Appeal to their drive to succeed and familiarity in being among the best and brightest. 

A company that I saw do this well and at scale was Dropbox. The Dropbox Rotation Program (DRP) recruited new grads from top schools to do a two-year generalist business rotation that consisted of Customer Support, Sales, and Marketing. The idea was that you could get bright minds who were eager to work at a prestigious startup (Dropbox had a $10B valuation and was considered “the next Facebook” when this program existed), but didn’t know exactly what role or career they wanted, to work in non-technical roles rather than hiring experienced specialists to fill those roles. The program would eventually reach its limits, but for 4 years, many junior roles across the company were filled by “smart generalists” straight out of college and it was a win-win. 

Look for intellectual horsepower, drive, and a history of solving problems in high-impact areas of a company or field of research. Mostly, you want to establish a comfort level that this person will be a cultural fit in your organization and be able to win buy-in for marketing experiments and programs across the organization.

How to manage them

Say you’ve managed to lure the next Sheryl Sandberg to your company for a loosely-defined marketing role. How do you get Sandberg-like performance? I reached out to my friends at the Renaissance Collective—a curated community of smart generalists who help each other navigate careers in tech—to explore this question. 

1. Sell the rocket

Super ICs want a seat on a rocket ship. Your first job is convincing them you are due for liftoff—and clearly explaining how their marketing role will be critical for success. 

Calanthia Mei studied politics at Georgetown University and worked on Wall Street for a few years out of college. She was working closely with financial institutions and developed a fascination for understanding the innovation in payments. But, like many top generalists, Silicon Valley called to her. 

“If I was going to be serious about fintech, I needed to be in Silicon Valley,” she said.

It was an easy decision for Mei to join PayPal, where she went on to help establish PayPal Ventures (as its second full-time employee). From there, she jumped to a leadership role at the hot fintech startup Fast. 

2. Tie it to the mission

The no. 1 rule for managing a Super IC is to tie everything this person does—literally, everything—to your company’s mission. 

Remember, they care about impact, not job titles. 

Nadia Eldeib, a former product manager at Lyft, started out in a generalist marketing role at a small startup. She began to look for bigger opportunities to contribute and ended up supporting crucial functions including product, growth, and operations. When the startup was later acquired by Lyft, the ability to apply these skills to a meaningful mission really clicked.

“It was such a lightbulb moment,” Eldeib said. “We had the potential to help millions of people’s lives every day. I thought, ‘How can I contribute, and what does that help look like?’”

3. Offer broad experience 

Super ICs are hungry to learn and advance. They want to take on varied assignments and gain exposure to all aspects of the company.

Author David Epstein calls this the “sampling period” when athletes “gain broad skills to scaffold later learning.” 

Mei said a key to her success was her boss’s decision to include her in standups with every department during her first week, so she could get a holistic view of the company. 

Several Renaissance Collective members described their early roles as opportunities to add “arrows,” or new skills, to their “quiver.” 

4. Offer (structured) autonomy 

Super ICs thrive in ambiguous environments without much direction. But because they are likely to be new to startups and have a lot to learn, they do require a level of support. 

John Byon, a former business operations manager at Opendoor, started in a general marketing role. For Byon, Opendoor offered the right balance of support and autonomy.

“For me, it was a growth-stage company that hit the sweet spot between having enough structure and support systems for people like me who are super early in their career and also early enough that I could still have a lot of autonomy and express my entrepreneurial drive.”

5. Be prepared to lose them

For all the strengths Super ICs bring to an early startup, there is one downside: They won’t stay in the same role very long. They’re much more likely to get bored once the experimentation phase is over and find a new high-impact opportunity, or even start their own company.

When Eldeib transitioned from a marketing role to a product role at Lyft, she found her generalist skills transferred, too.

“Marketing is at an interesting intersection of product and design, engineering, and creative branding. It’s creativity put together with logic. It’s problem-solving,” she told me. “Being in a product management role allowed me to take that same instinct for problem-solving to the next level of business impact.” 

Both Eldeib and Byon recently left their companies to start their own companies—a reality that any founder hiring Super ICs should not only prepare for but encourage. 

I’ve personally found managing Super ICs rewarding and fulfilling. I like to think of it as an opportunity to get to know someone I’ll probably work for in the future. :)