Early-stage startup marketing isn't scaled-company marketing. You're not optimising a funnel; you're figuring out whether the product works and who wants it. Seven moves that fit that stage specifically.

1. Talk to customers constantly

Not surveys — actual conversations, preferably by phone or video. Ten conversations a month reveals more about your product than any analytics dashboard.

2. Write long-form content your customer would actually read

Not content marketing in the SEO-gaming sense. Genuine writing that answers the questions your customers are typing into search. Ten such posts over a year outperform 100 thin posts.

3. Be visible on the one channel your audience lives on

Don't try to be everywhere. Find where your customers actually hang out — a subreddit, an X community, LinkedIn for some B2B — and be present and useful there.

4. Ship in public

Share what you're building, what's working, what isn't. Indie hackers' reward loop for this is well-documented; the same pattern works in B2B with more decorum.

5. A single flagship metric

Not a dashboard. One number that captures the health of the thing. Everyone on the team should know what it is and where it is. Decisions get easier.

6. Referral, not acquisition

Early users who got value will tell others — unless your product is bad. Optimise for retention and word-of-mouth first; paid acquisition comes after product-market fit, not before.

7. Name the thing clearly

Most startups pitch themselves in ways no one outside their team can understand. A one-sentence description your mother would understand is worth the week of work it takes to write.

Seven moves. None of them are channel-specific hacks. They're how the early-stage marketing job is actually different from the scaled-stage one — and founders who understand the difference waste fewer quarters on tactics that only work later.