So which do you hire first?
For most early-stage B2B SaaS, hire the GTM engineer first. I say that as someone who's primarily a marketer, who's done the GTM engineering myself, and who's both run agencies and worked inside them. I'm not talking my own book here; if anything my instincts should push me the other way. The GTM engineer still wins, because at your stage you need range and scale from a single seat, and that's the one option that gives you both.
The other two, an agency or a first marketing hire, each solve a real problem. They just tend to solve the problem you'll have later, not the one you have now.
Why not an agency first?
Because agencies bloat and specialise exactly when you still need breadth. An agency is a fantastic way to buy deep expertise in one thing: paid, or SEO, or lifecycle. Early on, one thing is precisely what you don't need. You need someone who can build a list, enrich it, stand up a CRM, write the comms, wire the automation and start real conversations, all of it, roughly, this quarter.
To get that breadth from agencies you end up stitching several together, or you buy a broad-scope one, and broad-scope agencies get pricey fast. You're also paying for their overhead, their account managers and their margin, to do work that, at your size, is still mostly about getting the fundamentals in place rather than squeezing a mature channel. There's a time for agencies. It's after you've got the machine running and you want to pour fuel on a specific part of it.
Why not a first marketing hire?
Because a first marketing hire tends to be one of two people, and neither is quite what an early SaaS needs. Option one is senior and strategic: brilliant on positioning and narrative, light on actually building the thing. They'll write you a strategy you can't yet execute. Option two is junior and narrow: they own one channel competently and look at you blankly when you ask them to wire a lifecycle or enrich an account list.
The classic first marketing hire gives you strategy without hands, or hands without range. Early on you need both, from one person.
That's the gap a good GTM engineer fills. They're comfortable being strategic where it counts and hands-on everywhere else, which is the exact shape of an early team's needs. And if you're still deciding whether you're even at that point, it's worth reading the honest signal that your SaaS is ready for a GTM engineer at all before you hire anyone.
But don't you need brand awareness first?
No, and this is where I part company with most advice. The assumption is that the first marketing job is brand awareness, so you should hire or outsource for reach and recognition. I disagree. Early on you don't need to be famous. You need to look trustworthy and start real conversations with the right people.
Those two things, credibility and conversations, are a GTM job, not a brand job. Looking trustworthy is a landing page that holds up, a founder who shows up usefully, proof that you've solved this before, and outreach that sounds like a person. Starting conversations is finding the right accounts and reaching them with something worth replying to. None of that is a brand campaign. All of it is what a GTM engineer builds. Brand awareness is a wonderful problem to invest in once enough of the right people already trust you and reply to you. It's a strange first purchase when almost nobody knows you exist.
What makes the GTM engineer the safe first bet?
Range and scale from one seat, and everything downstream of that. One good GTM engineer can stand up your CRM, build and enrich your target lists, write and run the outbound, wire the automation and set up the measurement, then scale the parts that work without adding headcount. That's a breadth an agency won't give you cheaply and a first marketing hire usually can't give you at all.
You're buying optionality. If the market shifts, one flexible builder adapts far faster than a specialist agency retainer or a hire pigeonholed into a channel. And when you do reach the point where you want deep specialism or a brand push, you'll be adding it onto a working machine, which is a much better place to spend from than a standing start.
If you're weighing up your first growth hire and want a straight answer for your specific stage, book a free Growth Audit and we'll map what one seat should actually cover for you. Our GTM engineering page walks through how we run the role in practice.
Frequently asked questions
When does an agency make sense, then?
Once the machine is already running and you want depth in one channel. Agencies are excellent at scaling a mature, specific thing, paid, SEO, lifecycle, where their expertise beats a generalist. Buy that after you've got the fundamentals in place, not as your first move when you still need breadth across everything.
Isn't a senior marketer safer than a GTM engineer?
Only if you can already execute their strategy. A senior strategic marketer will hand you a plan you're not yet resourced to run. Early on you need someone who's strategic where it counts and hands-on everywhere else. That's the GTM engineer's shape, and it's rarer and more useful at your stage.
Do I really not need brand awareness early on?
Not as your first spend. Early on you need to look trustworthy and start conversations with the right accounts, which is a GTM job. Brand awareness is worth investing in once enough of the right people already trust you and reply to you. It's a strange thing to buy when almost nobody knows you exist yet.
Can one GTM engineer really cover all of this?
At early stage, yes, that's the point of the role. One good one can stand up the CRM, build and enrich lists, run outbound, wire automation and set up measurement, then scale what works. It's breadth plus enough depth to ship. You add specialists later, onto a machine that's already turning.
