Justine HerlinI build the marketing function that takes over from founder-led GTM, and keep it lean until more headcount is clearly worth it.
Senior enough to decide what matters. Hands-on enough to build it with you.
01 / The problem
You may recognize some of this:
The founder still writes or approves most important marketing
Agencies, freelancers or specialists are producing work, but nobody owns the whole system
The company is trying several channels without a clear way to decide what deserves more investment
Positioning, sales messaging and website language have drifted apart
CRM, attribution or reporting are not reliable enough to guide decisions
You know you need more senior marketing ownership, but hiring a full leadership layer feels premature
You do not need more disconnected activity. You need the marketing function behind it.
02 / How it works
The exact build depends on the company, its sales motion and how clear its positioning already is. The recurring work sits across four connected layers.
Customer evidence, ICP, positioning, messaging, competitive context and the assumptions that still need testing.
Choose the channels and experiments worth running, create the proof and content they need, and learn quickly enough to stop weak bets.
CRM, lead capture, analytics, attribution, reporting, automation and a stack that serves the business instead of becoming another project to manage.
Priorities, documentation, decision rhythms, specialist briefs and clear ownership so the function becomes less dependent on founder memory and ad-hoc coordination.
The role itself is changing.
So is the way a first marketing function can be built. I wrote about what that means for founders deciding how to grow marketing.
Read: The Founding Marketer and the future of the marketing function03 / Proof
Women as One
Built the marketing, growth and operating capability behind an organisation already showing traction across programmes, community, partners and an early digital product.
Mantu
Built a global growth and brand capability across multiple brands, countries and time zones while marketing, recruitment and organisational ownership remained deeply interconnected.
04 / How I operate
I stay close enough to the work to see when the message is weak, when the data is unreliable, when a channel assumption is wrong or when the real bottleneck is somewhere else entirely. That does not mean one person should permanently do every marketing job. It means the function has one accountable senior owner.
The company owns the systems, data, documentation and decision rationale throughout. I can remain embedded as the function evolves, or help future hires inherit something that already works.
Build → Run → Learn → Adjust
The cycle repeats as the business changes. When the function needs more capacity, it can come from a workflow, a specialist or a hire, whichever the work justifies.
See how the engagement evolves05 / Guides
These guides answer the questions founders usually need to settle before talking to a marketer.
Browse the guides06 / About
I am a senior hands-on marketer based in Spain, working across Europe and North America. My background spans early-stage companies, SaaS, professional services, healthcare, education, climate and international programs. The common thread is less about sector than the problem: there is a blank page, fragmented system or transition that needs turning into something the organization can actually operate.
About Justine
07 / What I'm building
Selected posts from the work in progress: what I am building, testing and learning along the way.
08 / FAQ
A Founding Marketer is the senior marketer who builds a company’s first marketing function when there is no established team, playbook or operating model to inherit. The role combines strategy and hands-on execution across positioning, demand generation, content and marketing systems. I take on this role on a fractional basis for startups with traction.
Read the full definitionA Fractional CMO is usually the right fit when the main need is senior leadership, team direction and oversight of a function already in motion. A Founding Marketer is closer to building that function: setting the priorities and doing a meaningful share of the work while it takes shape.
When each option fitsUsually when there are credible product-market fit signals, the founder still carries most of the marketing, and agencies, freelancers or a junior marketer are producing work without one senior owner of the system. That often happens around seed or early Series A, but the operating problem matters more than the funding stage.
When should you hire your first marketer?Yes, a large part of it. I personally own diagnosis, prioritization, system design and the highest-leverage execution. I bring in specialists and vendors when I judge they will accelerate growth.
See how I workA typical starting point is €5,500 per month for around two days a week. It is a starting point, not a fixed package: scope, cadence and fee are tailored to the mandate once we know what the function needs.
Book a callGet in touch
If your company has traction but marketing still lacks one senior owner, we can use a 30-minute call to understand what exists, what is missing and whether a Fractional Founding Marketer is the right next step.