The Pie-Shaped Talent Model
by Emily Kramer • Co-founder & General Partner at MKT1 / MKT1 Capital
Emily led and built marketing teams from scratch at Asana, Carta, Ticketfly, and Astro. She is a highly regarded angel investor and writer who specializes in helping early-stage B2B startups build their marketing function and go-to-market strategy.
🎙️ Episode Context
Emily Kramer demystifies the often nebulous function of marketing for product leaders and founders. She introduces concrete mental models for diagnosing growth bottlenecks, hiring the right archetypes based on business model, and establishing high-trust collaboration between Product and Marketing. The conversation shifts marketing from 'splatergy' (random tactics) to a disciplined engineering-like discipline focused on fuel and engines.
Problem It Solves
Addresses the difficulty of finding a 'unicorn' first marketing hire who can do everything.
Framework Overview
Rather than looking for a T-shaped marketer (broad knowledge, one depth) or a specialist, early-stage startups should hire 'Pie-shaped' (π) marketers who have broad knowledge but *two* distinct spikes of deep expertise.
🧠 Framework Structure
Spike 1: Usually Product Marketing (u...
Spike 2: Either Content (creating the...
The Bar: The horizontal line represen...
Avoid: Candidates who are pure genera...
When to Use
Writing job descriptions and evaluating candidates for the first 1-3 marketing hires.
Common Mistakes
Hiring a T-shaped person who is 'okay' at everything but excellent at nothing, or hiring a pure specialist who cannot function without a supporting team.
Real World Example
Hiring a Product Marketer who is also deeply skilled at Content (writing/storytelling) to be the first hire, knowing they can hire an agency for Paid Ads (the gap).
You want to hire Pi-shaped marketers... like the Pi symbol has two vertical lines... an expert in one of those three areas... and proficient in another one.
— Emily Kramer