The Starters

I'm building a full-stack growth team for a $10M food & beverage brand for under $10,000/mo. I'm hiring A+ players for: - Paid Social Marketing / Creative Strategy - Paid Search Marketing - CRM Marketing - Influencer Marketing - Graphic Design - Video Editing All on a fractional basis. See how I do it ⬇️

We facilitate nearly 200 freelancer <> brand relationships each month. Here are the top 10 roles in e-commerce right now, what they do, and how much they get paid: 🟢 10. Chief Marketing Officer - $150/hr Fractional CMOs are making a comeback. They help brand with overall marketing strategy, spend allocation, and hiring / managing internal and external teams. Fractional CMOs typically oversee growth, retention, and the online storefront. 🟢 9. Performance Creative Lead - $95/hr Previously a very “hot” role, this role has declined in popularity over the last few months. Performance Creative Leads (or Creative Strategists) help brands drive better results on paid social through creative strategy, concepting, and briefing. They’re typically paired with a freelance media buyer (or can be a media buyer themselves) to manage all paid social channels. 🟢 8. E-Commerce Manager - $88/hr E-Commerce Managers are responsible for managing online stores, A/B testing initiatives, merchandising, and the overall technology ecosystem of a Shopify brand. On The Starters, they’re most in-demand for their A/B testing expertise & capabilities. 🟢 7. CRM Marketer - $90/hr CRM Marketers run all things email & SMS. They’re typically IC-level retention marketing experts, and are responsible for strategizing & executing all of a brand’s CRM flows + one-off campaigns. 🟢 6. Influencer Marketer - $95/hr Influencer marketers have been exploding in popularity with the rise of TikTok Shops. They manage all influencer & creator relationships for product seeding, content generation, “pay for post”, and affiliate deals. 🟢 5. Head of Growth - $145/hr A Head of Growth manages all new customer acquisition initiatives for a brand. This includes paid social, paid search, affiliate, influencer, organic social, & more. Depending on the brand and their needs, they can either remain strategic (overall strategy, managing teams, budgeting) or executional (media buying in-channels). 🟢 4. Creative Director - $95/hr Seeing this role so high up surprises me… but after digging in, I saw CDs were being hired for execution-level work, like design or copywriting. Typically, CDs oversee the overall creative strategy and aren’t executing as often. 🟢 3. Graphic Designer - $93/hr Graphic Designers continue to be incredibly popular— brands continuously need new assets for ads, email, landing pages, packaging, and web assets, and our graphic designers can do it all. 🟢 2. Paid Social Marketer - $90/hr This one is pretty self explanatory— paid social marketers run the execution of paid media on social channels like Meta, TikTok, and Snap. They’re typically one of the first hires a brand makes. 🟢 1. Growth Marketer - $90/hr A Growth Marketer is like a Paid Social marketer, but they typically have experience executing in at least 1 additional paid channel (typically paid search). Since this is a “jack of all trades” role, it tends to be the most popular role hired.

🚨 It’s HERE The ultimate guide on finding, vetting, and managing freelancers: Grab it: https://lnkd.in/g3b6qfQ4 Hiring fractional experts is the best way to grow an e-commerce brand, period. I realized this after hiring (and subsequently laying off) dozens of employees when I was at Winc. I decided to dedicate my career to helping e-commerce leaders avoid the mistakes I made. Over the last 18 months, we’ve helped nearly a THOUSAND e-commerce brands find elite, affordable freelancers. They’re hiring experts from brands like Dr. Squatch, Athletic Greens, Hexclad, Nike, and more… for a fraction of the price. Now, instead of gatekeeping that access to members of The Starters, I’m opening it up so that ANYONE can learn how to find, vet, and manage fractional experts in the best ways. My team and I have been heads down over the last 2 months, putting together a 35+ page guide that’ll show you how to do all of this. Your cost? Absolutely nothing. In the guide, you’ll learn: - Why fractional experts are SO important in 2024 - How to find the best freelancers - The pros / cons of various freelance marketplaces - How to effectively vet freelancers - How much you should be paying freelancers - How to manage freelancers in the most effective way And you’ll get access to an interactive PDF with: - Hiring proces templates - Interview guides - Scoring rubrics - Onboarding checklists And no, this wasn’t just written by me. We interviewed top e-commerce CMOs who leverage fractional experts to grow their businesses. The guide is jam-packed with best practices my learnings at The Starters, as well as outside perspectives from e-commerce CMOs who hire freelancers every day. And yes… it’s free, no strings attached. I hope you love it.

Get early access now!

I’m excited to announce that I've been accepted to join The Starters, a curated network of the top marketers, creatives, and technologists in the e-commerce industry! Check out The Starters to work with me and other e-commerce experts: https://lnkd.in/eqfq2syn

Last week was a big one for us. After 8 months of development, continuous delays, and endless frustration, we finally launched our in-platform messaging, contracts, and payments functionality. In addition to being able to find & hire great vetted e-commerce freelancers, you can now: - Instant message them, right on the platform - Generate contracts in just a few clicks - Pay invoices, fee free And for the first time, our Starters (freelancers) finally have a dashboard where they can: - Message brands - Manage their projects - Send invoices - View & edit their profile Technology has always been our weakness— I chose to build the company with a talent-first mindset, knowing that building seamless tech to integrate everything could follow. Now, nearly 18 months later, we've finally made huge strides forward in our technology. There's never been a better time to hire from The Starters.

Growing an omnichannel brand through retail? Get your e-commerce team involved in your retail conversations— they're your secret weapon. Learn more from Elizabeth Ahern on how e-commerce teams helped Chamberlain Coffee break into & find success in retail ⬇️

Coming so soon 👀

One of our brand members is in talks to hire their 7th and 8th freelancers from the platform. Hundreds of brands are unlocking tremendous value from using The Starters, but a select few are absolutely crushing the freelance hiring game. Here’s how they’re making the most out of their freelance hires: 1) They’re reaching out to 2-3 people per role they’re hiring for. Interviewing too many candidates (say, 5+) is time consuming and leads to a lengthy interview process. Too few, and you don’t have enough optionality. The Starters takes care of all the initial vetting and pre-qualifying, but it’s still good to talk to a couple candidates to see who the best fit is for your brand. They use this time to gauge interest / enthusiasm for the process, get a better idea of scope and costs, and assess overall fit. 2) They let the freelancer dictate how many hours they need to do a good job Instead of saying “we have the budget for 10 hours a week”, they share their goals with the freelancer and the freelancer comes back with a proposal based on how much time they think they need to spend to accomplish those goals. This aligns incentives on outcomes vs. targeting a specific cost. If it costs too much? Find someone else or reduce the scope; don’t negotiate down hours for the same job. 3) They work asynchronously Instead of bogging down freelancers with endless recurring meetings, they get 1x weekly (or monthly) offline updates and Loom video explainers to add more context. Feedback is handled totally asynchronously as well. The only times they have meetings is to discuss new strategic initiatives. 4) They pay ON TIME Nothing stresses out freelancers more than when they’re going to get paid. By paying invoices on time, brands generate trust with the freelancer and automatically become a VIP client. There are vendors where you can delay payments or extend terms, but freelancers aren’t one of them. *** The Starters helps e-commerce brands find the best freelance marketers, creatives, and technologists in the space. Unlike mass freelancer marketplaces or staffing agencies, we: - Pre-vet all talent (application, portfolio review, and interview process) - Make them ALL available for you to see (vs. sending you 1 candidate at a time) - Charge ZERO commissions, recruiting fees, or markups on freelancer rates - Allow brands to hire as many freelancers (or full-time employees) as they'd like at one low membership cost ($295/mo, cancel anytime) Check us out if you want to win by hiring the best talent & reducing your OPEX with cost-efficient freelance hires.