Meta marketing chief advises startups to avoid certain teams and for CEO to lead

Early growth is the CEO’s job first

Startups often rush to hire specialized growth teams too soon. Alex Schultz, Meta’s chief marketing officer, stresses that founders should take charge of growth themselves in the earliest stages of the company.

When a company has only a few hundred employees, the CEO’s focus on driving expansion is vital. Delegating growth too early can reduce impact and slow momentum during critical stages of development.

Hiring too early can drain resources

Bringing in a full growth team when a startup is small can be expensive and inefficient. Founders may lose focus on core priorities if they rely on others too soon.

Schultz points out that a CEO’s deep understanding of the product and users is unmatched. Early hires may struggle to make the right growth decisions without hands-on leadership guiding every step.

Growth is a top founder responsibility

According to Schultz, growing the business is the single most important job for a CEO. It should not be treated as just another task among many.

Founders are encouraged to personally experiment with tactics like search engine optimization, advertising, and gathering user feedback. This approach ensures that the company’s main growth strategy reflects insights only leadership can provide in early stages.

Meta’s lean growth teams example

Meta keeps growth teams small, with less than one percent of its nearly 100,000 employees. Each team focuses on product-specific initiatives like Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp.

This demonstrates that even giant companies rely on compact and talent-dense groups. Startups can learn to achieve maximum results with a small, skilled team before expanding headcount for broader growth projects.

Founder mode encourages hands-on leadership

The concept of founder mode emphasizes that leaders should be deeply involved in company operations. Staying engaged helps spot issues and opportunities before they escalate.

Alex Schultz and other experts stress that presence is more important than delegation at this stage. CEOs who interact directly with users and products gain insight into what drives growth and what adjustments are necessary.

Premature specialization can cause misalignment

Hiring a dedicated growth team too early can create a disconnect in priorities. Founders risk losing a clear view of what drives the most meaningful progress.

Schultz explains that early-stage startups benefit when everyone focuses on growth under the CEO’s guidance. This alignment ensures that all efforts contribute to the company’s success instead of spreading resources thin across disconnected roles.

Hands-on leadership boosts agility in growth

CEOs who personally lead growth can quickly adjust strategies when something is not working. Direct involvement allows for faster responses to user feedback and market trends.

Small companies gain flexibility because leadership can experiment freely with product features, messaging, and acquisition channels. This nimbleness often disappears when growth is handed over to a separate team too early in the company’s life.

Early-stage companies need strategic depth

A CEO’s firsthand knowledge of the product and market is critical in shaping growth efforts. Few external teams can replicate the depth of insight that comes from founder‑level immersion.

Schultz emphasizes that founders who embed growth into their daily work develop a stronger strategy. This ensures that early-stage decisions reflect both the vision and the needs of the market, creating a foundation for sustainable expansion.

Learning from Meta’s growth journey

At Meta, executives themselves led growth initiatives before hiring specialized teams. This hands-on approach helped scale products effectively and efficiently.

Founders can follow this model by staying directly involved in acquisition, retention, and user engagement strategies. Being hands-on early helps create a solid framework for growth and prepares the company for future team expansion without losing focus.

Small teams achieve big results

Meta demonstrates that compact teams can handle crucial systems like search engine optimization, advertising, and analytics. Large teams are not always necessary to achieve growth.

For startups, focusing on small expert-led teams maximizes impact while conserving resources. Quality of talent and strategic thinking matter more than sheer numbers when it comes to driving measurable growth in early stages.

Balancing innovation with execution

CEOs must combine creative experimentation with disciplined execution. Growth requires both new ideas and careful follow-through to succeed.

Schultz advises founders to test approaches themselves before hiring others. This ensures strategies are practical and aligned with company goals, creating momentum and avoiding missteps that can occur if tasks are delegated too early.

Data-driven decisions start at the top

Founders can use analytics to understand user behavior and product engagement. Insights are most effective when leadership drives the process.

Delegating growth too early can create a disconnect between strategy and results. When CEOs lead, every decision reflects the company’s mission and market needs, ensuring smarter growth and stronger performance in critical early months.

Timing matters for team expansion

Schultz highlights that growth teams should come much later in a startup’s life. Creating one when a company has only a few dozen employees can be counterproductive.

Once the startup expands into multiple products, partnerships, and markets, bringing in a growth team makes sense. Until then, the CEO’s personal involvement ensures that the company builds momentum without unnecessary bureaucracy.

Focus fuels faster results

When the CEO personally drives growth, the entire company works toward the same goal. Everyone understands the priorities and how their work contributes to success.

This unified approach builds momentum faster than fragmented efforts. Startups reach milestones more quickly when leadership stays directly involved in growth instead of outsourcing it prematurely to a team.

Founder involvement builds company culture

Direct leadership in growth sets the tone for the organization. Teams learn by example and adopt a hands-on mindset that supports accountability.

Schultz emphasizes that culture matters alongside strategy. CEOs who stay involved in growth foster a culture of experimentation, learning, and responsiveness that becomes embedded in the company’s operations and guides future teams.

The balance between expansion and jobs takes center stage as Scale AI announces 14% layoffs, with the CEO explaining reasons in a staff email.

Growth starts at the top

CEOs who lead early-stage growth shape the future success of their startups. Delegating too soon can slow progress and reduce impact. Lessons from Meta show that founders who personally drive expansion create stronger, more agile companies.

Being involved early fosters innovation and responsiveness. Step in and lead growth yourself, and your company will build a foundation for long-term success that teams alone cannot replicate.

Curious how tech leaders are reshaping views on higher education? Read why tech CEOs push youth to rethink college degrees as industry transforms.

If you are building a startup or know a founder, share your thoughts in the comments and tell us how you approach growth personally.

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This slideshow was made with AI assistance and human editing.