The ideal size of a SaaS marketing team until you are at $10m+ ARR is the size that is accretive.
The last thing you want is a bunch of “marketers” whose ROI you don’t understand. But:
- At even $20k in MRR, you’re ready for a head of demand gen and maybe even a true VP of Marketing (as long as she’s hands-on). You’re ready to cost-effectively pay for more leads, and more effectively managing the ones you do have. I Hired My VP of Marketing at $20k MRR. It Wasn’t a Week Too Early.
- As soon as you know how to do events and make them ROI positive, you’re ready to hire someone to manage events for you and do “field marketing”.
- As soon as you have enough marketing-generated leads to justify a marketing led lead qual team — hire them.
Later, you’ll end up with more “soft” marketers whose ROI will be opaque to you.
But from $20k in MRR to $10m in ARR … hire every marketer that is ROI positive. And skip the ones that aren’t.