I’ve been having discussions lately where I’ve been asked “if you want to start another company, why are you working in marketing?” I have not had a good answer for this question, other than that it feels right. Many things in my career have felt directionally correct but lacked a rigorous explanation.

Now, I think I have one. My favorite essay about startups is Paul Graham’s “Startups = Growth”. He makes the point that what truly defines a startup is truly ridiculous growth. If you stay in marketing long enough you will see months where some metric jumps 50%, or a quarter where the number of users for a particular product grows two orders of magnitude. The question for founders is - what if the whole company grew like this, consistently?

Growth is hard to get and hard to keep. If you are not in the act of conciously growing a startup, you may consider a marketing role at one to keep your muscles warm.