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The operating manual for early-stage B2B marketing leaders
I'm Rob Young. I spent five years as a senior analyst at IDC watching companies repeat the same GTM mistakes. Then I spent a decade inside them, as the first marketing leader at five venture-backed startups, typically pre-seed through Series A-B, reporting directly to a first-time founder-CEO. The mistakes haven't changed. The cost has.
MarketingHQ is the operating manual for early-stage B2B marketing leaders, the founders and first marketing hires actually doing the work, who want the unfiltered version of what actually works.
Along the way I've advised Microsoft, VMware, Dell, NVIDIA, Citrix, and ServiceNow, and led product marketing at IBM Security. That analyst-plus-operator view is what MHQ is built on.
Inside MHQ:
GTM insights that don't waste your time (Weekly newsletter)
Peer conversations worth having (Live and in-person events)
Your next big marketing role (Job Board)
Working with Rob
Most early-stage founders think they have a marketing problem. Usually it's a GTM problem, and marketing is just where it shows up first. Unclear ICP. Muddy positioning. A number nobody built from real math. A tiny team spending on activity instead of pipeline.
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I've built the marketing function from zero five times, as the first marketing leader at pre-seed to Series B startups, and diagnosed these same patterns from the outside as an IDC analyst. I know exactly where early-stage GTM breaks and how to fix it fast.
Here's how I help:
GTM Diagnostic: A focused, fixed-scope engagement to find what's actually broken in your go-to-market, before you spend scarce runway going in the wrong direction. Built on the GTM Clarity Framework, a 5-step process that pinpoints the real constraint and gives you the plan to fix it. Most work starts here.
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Fractional CMO: Embedded GTM leadership for early-stage companies that need a marketing leader before they can hire a full-time one. I work directly with the founder to own the number, sharpen ICP and positioning, and build a marketing motion that produces pipeline, not just activity.
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Workshops & Training: GTM strategy sessions for early-stage teams, plus keynotes that give founders and marketers a framework, not just inspiration.
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