If you're the first marketing hire, here's the part the LinkedIn complaint posts leave out: it's on you to teach the founder and CEO what marketing actually does. Amit Sharan, SVP Marketing at Tatari, learned it firsthand pitching a brand refresh to an executive team that had never fielded a creative question in their lives. "Didn't we hire you for this?" Yes, and explaining why it matters is the job. Matt Wurst and Valerie Vespa get the advice every early-stage marketer needs to hear.