If you are selling big enterprise products priced above ~ $10K you absolutely need marketing/sales.
If you are lighting a powder keg, you got lucky and probably don't need much.
If you are trying to start a movement, you require hype, which can come from a dedicated community (e.g. tech) and may not require independent marketing. But you may need a community person. Or you may not be so lucky (e.g. your market is used car sales) and may at some point need a full-time SEO/partnership/etc. person.
If you are going "empire" you will eventually need these sorts of people, since they reach people that can't be reached otherwise. If you are going empire you will also need management people, since large organizations get unwieldy and there are lots of things they learn in b-school about wielding spreadsheets and org charts that will probably be useful.
Conclusion? I tend to think in general you don't need a marketing/sales person until you have a product, but it may be good to get them on board early in some circumstances, particularly if you are also searching for VC or trying to define the product better and need someone who can interface directly with potential clients and gather requirements, etc.
If you are selling big enterprise products priced above ~ $10K you absolutely need marketing/sales.
If you are lighting a powder keg, you got lucky and probably don't need much.
If you are trying to start a movement, you require hype, which can come from a dedicated community (e.g. tech) and may not require independent marketing. But you may need a community person. Or you may not be so lucky (e.g. your market is used car sales) and may at some point need a full-time SEO/partnership/etc. person.
If you are going "empire" you will eventually need these sorts of people, since they reach people that can't be reached otherwise. If you are going empire you will also need management people, since large organizations get unwieldy and there are lots of things they learn in b-school about wielding spreadsheets and org charts that will probably be useful.
Conclusion? I tend to think in general you don't need a marketing/sales person until you have a product, but it may be good to get them on board early in some circumstances, particularly if you are also searching for VC or trying to define the product better and need someone who can interface directly with potential clients and gather requirements, etc.