I was recruited from Apple to Motorola early in my career, along with a small group of others. Our mission? Build a world-class developer program from the ground up in 10 weeks.
Motorola at the time had over 60,000 employees and was headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois. But our team operated out of Silicon Valley, functioned like a startup, and had complete autonomy to build something new. We had an impossible deadline, limited resources, and the freedom to move fast without the bureaucracy of a massive corporation.
We worked around the clock, pulled all-nighters, and shipped the program on time. We weren't a startup, but we functioned exactly like one.
That experience taught me something I've carried through my entire career: "startup" isn't about how old your company is or how much funding you have. It's about the challenge you're solving and how you approach it.
A tech startup is typically a newly formed company solving a specific problem with an innovative product, service, or business model. They're often venture-backed (though not always) and operating with limited resources at various stages of growth.
But a startup-like company is something different.
It's a company that may have been around for years but is building something from the ground up. A new product. A new market. A transformation. What sets these companies apart isn't their age or funding stage. It's their approach.
Startup-like companies share these characteristics:
This matters because the marketing these companies need requires a discovery mindset, not an optimization playbook.
Throughout my career, I've worked with both actual startups and companies that function like them. The challenges are remarkably similar.
Actual Startups I've Worked With:
WireX Systems is an early-stage Series A cybersecurity SaaS startup. As their VP of Marketing (fractional), I'm helping position their Network Detection & Response (NDR) solution focused on data protection, threat detection, and network visibility. They're proving their value proposition in a competitive market with limited budget and a small team.
HyperTrack is a Series A location-based tech startup streamlining workflows for healthcare, field service, and light industrial companies. Think travel nursing: HyperTrack detects when a nurse is too far from their scheduled shift to make it on time and automatically triggers a workflow to find a replacement. I was brought in as a marketing consultant to help them build a marketing strategy and execution plan for their annual virtual summit.
Startup-Like Companies I've Worked With:
Galt is a 25-year-old nonprofit staffing company placing people with disabilities in the workforce. They built a successful business supporting state services but saw an opportunity to expand into the private sector. As their fractional CMO, I built a marketing plan to go-to-market in new states and launch the commercial side of their business.
MSI Data is a PE-backed field service management software company. They hired a brand-new CEO to transform the company into a product-led growth organization with a structured go-to-market motion while simultaneously launching a new AI product. As fractional CMO, I'm helping them launch the product, build a full marketing strategy, and convert product adoption into scalable revenue. Established company, complete transformation, startup mentality.
The pattern is clear: different company ages, same marketing challenge.
When you're launching a new product, entering a new market, or transforming your business, you can't optimize what doesn't exist yet. You need to be in discovery mode.
But too often, companies get stuck because of:
Startup-like environments require a different approach: test, learn, iterate. Move fast, gather real market feedback, and adjust based on what you learn.
If you're launching something new, whether you're a three-person seed-stage startup or a division inside a larger company, you need the same things:
1. Strategic Clarity
Not just campaigns. You need a clear direction on what the marketing priorities are and how they align to the business goals. Ultimately what you prioritize needs to move the needle.
2. Go-to-Market (GTM) Leadership
Marketing can't work in a silo. In a startup-like environment, marketing sits at the intersection of product, sales, customer success, and operations. You need a marketing leader who can build bridges across functions and drive alignment. This is the true differentiator of a GTM leader.
3. Executive-Level Thinking with Scrappy Execution
You need someone who can operate at both levels simultaneously. Roll up their sleeves and execute like a startup while bringing the strategic perspective of an executive. Fortune 500 thinking with startup speed.
4. Someone Who's Done This Before
Startups and startup-like companies don't have time for expensive learning curves. You need a marketing leader who's navigated this exact challenge multiple times and knows what works at each stage.
If you're launching a new product, entering a new market, or transforming your business, you might be more startup-like than you think.
Ask yourself:
If you answered yes to most of these, you're startup-like.
If this sounds like your company, let's talk. I help startup and startup-like companies level up their marketing strategy, build go-to-market momentum, and drive real growth.
A startup-like company isn't defined by its age or funding stage. It's defined by its situation. A company that's been around for 25 years but is launching a new product, entering a new market, or transforming its business model is operating with the same constraints and challenges as an early-stage startup: limited resources, aggressive timelines, unproven assumptions, and a need to move fast. The marketing approach required is the same regardless of how long the company has been around.
A startup mindset is the approach of moving fast, testing assumptions, iterating based on real feedback, and staying resourceful when resources are limited. It's the opposite of waiting for perfect conditions or getting stuck in endless approval cycles. Companies with a startup mindset treat every new initiative as a discovery process: launch something solid, learn from the market, and improve from there. This approach matters because it's faster, cheaper, and more responsive to what customers actually need than trying to plan everything perfectly upfront.
An actual startup is a newly formed company, often venture-backed, building a product and business model from scratch. A startup-like company may have an established customer base, revenue, and infrastructure, but is building something new within that context. A PE-backed software company launching an AI product, or a 25-year-old nonprofit expanding into a new market, both face startup-level challenges and need a startup mindset even though they aren't startups by traditional definition.
It needs a discovery mindset rather than an optimization playbook. When you're launching something new or entering a new market, you can't optimize what doesn't exist yet. You need strategic clarity on priorities, a go-to-market plan that connects marketing to sales and product, and the ability to test quickly, gather real feedback, and adjust. The worst thing a company in this stage can do is get stuck in endless review cycles waiting for perfection.
A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is the plan for how you'll bring a product or service to market and reach your target customers. For startups and startup-like companies, it's the foundation everything else is built on: who you're selling to, how you'll reach them, what you're saying, and how marketing and sales work together. Without it, marketing activities become disconnected and hard to prioritize.
Product-market fit is the point at which your product clearly resonates with a specific group of customers who genuinely need it and are willing to pay for it. Before you've found it, marketing is primarily about testing and learning. After you've found it, marketing shifts to scaling what's working. Many companies try to run growth campaigns before they've validated product-market fit, which is one of the most common and expensive mistakes in early-stage marketing.
A few honest questions to ask: Are you building something from the ground up, whether that's a new product, new market, or a significant business transformation? Do you have limited resources and an aggressive timeline? Are you still figuring out who your ideal customer is or how to reach them? If the answer to most of those is yes, you're operating with a startup mindset regardless of your company's age or size.
Someone who can operate at both the strategic and execution levels simultaneously. In an early-stage environment, you don't have the luxury of separating thinkers from doers. You need a marketing leader who can set direction, build cross-functional alignment, and roll up their sleeves to get things done, all at the same time. Experience matters too. Companies in discovery mode don't have time or budget for expensive learning curves.
Yes, and it's often the right fit. Startups and startup-like companies typically need senior marketing expertise but don't yet have the budget for a full-time CMO or VP of Marketing. A fractional marketing leader brings the strategic experience and go-to-market knowledge the company needs, scoped to what the business can actually support. It's a way to access executive-level marketing leadership without the full-time commitment.