First, have marketing put money where its mouth is

Marketing is still a fluffy word in the halls of Silicon Valley start-ups. The prevailing wisdom: If you build an amazing product, people will come. For many software companies like Gusto, which launched in 2012 as a payroll alternative for small businesses, that’s exactly how it got off the ground. It wasn’t until 2016 that it launched an ad campaign or 2017 that it hired its first CMO, Tolithia Kornweibel.Before evangelizing about the importance of brand, Kornweibel knew she n