Marketing to founder: Why CMOs Can Lead the New Era of Digital-Based Companies

If you believe marketing leaders only know how to create pretty campaigns, it's time to rethink. In fact, Chief Marketing Officers possess a skill set that can separate successful startups from failures. While many entrepreneurs fail by not understanding their market and audiences, CMOs live and breathe this understanding daily. 

Consider what a founder truly needs to do: identify an unmet need in the market, create a compelling value proposition, build a brand that resonates with the target audience, and scale sustainably, always with a focus on investment relevance. This isn't just the description of a successful entrepreneur. It is, literally, the daily life of a marketing professional. 

Brian Niccol, before revolutionizing Starbucks as CEO, demonstrated this entrepreneurial mindset by transforming Taco Bell and Chipotle. His approach wasn't merely that of an executive, but of a true founder, completely reimagining the customer experience and creating new business models within established companies. 

But here is where creative CMOs become an even more valuable asset: their unique ability to create positioning and concepts that literally transform a business. While other executives focus on optimization and efficiency, creative CMOs have the power to completely reimagine how a company presents itself to the world and how consumers perceive it. 

Think of Apple's transformation under Steve Jobs – a visionary who thought like a creative CMO. He didn't just improve products; he created a completely new narrative about what it meant to be “different” and “innovative.” This narrative didn't just sell products; it created a cultural movement that transformed Apple from a nearly bankrupt company into one of the most valuable in the world. 

Creative CMOs possess this same capacity for transformative storytelling. They know how to take an ordinary product or service and wrap it in a narrative that resonates deeply with consumers' aspirations, fears, and desires. This ability to create authentic emotional connections is what separates iconic brands from commodities. 

When a creative CMO becomes a founder, they aren't just launching a product – they are creating a universe of meanings. They understand that people don't just buy functionalities; they buy identity, belonging, and personal transformation. This understanding enables the development of value propositions that transcend competition based on price or technical features. 

The value created through narrative and emotional connection is measurable and lasting. Brands with strong emotional bonds have customers who pay premium prices, demonstrate greater loyalty, and become active brand advocates. For startups, this means lower acquisition costs, higher lifetime value, and organic growth via word-of-mouth and the creation of real communities – in other words, competitive advantages that no technology or financial strategy can easily replicate. 

A CMO who understands customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV), among other metrics, possesses essential fundamentals that make the difference between a startup that burns cash and one that grows sustainably. They know how to build efficient conversion funnels and scale marketing profitably, dealing with scarcity and courage – competencies that many founders learn the hard way. 

Here is a point that entrepreneurs don't always grasp: building valuable brands. Today, with the accelerated dematerialization of all businesses, brand equity represents between 17% and 19% of companies“ market value. For companies like Apple and Google, this number reaches 35%–49%. A CMO-founder doesn't see the brand as a ”nice-to-have" for after product-market fit. They understand that the brand *is* the product-market fit. 

This perspective enables CMO-founders to build companies with sustainable competitive advantages from the start. They know how to create emotional connections with customers, build engaged communities, and turn users into brand evangelists – elements that often determine which startups become unicorns. 

McKinsey research shows that companies with customer-focused leaders can achieve growth 2.3 times greater. CMO-founders bring this mindset from day one, building organizations that are naturally customer-centric, rather than trying to “add” customer focus later. 

They understand that sustainable growth comes from solving real problems for real people, not just from technological features that, in the end, will be quickly copied. This deep customer empathy, combined with analytical skills to measure and optimize the experience, creates a solid foundation for building lasting businesses. 

In a world where 79% of global intangible assets (valued at US$ 79.4 trillion) do not appear on balance sheets, the real value of companies lies increasingly in the minds and hearts of consumers. CMO-founders not only understand this, but they know how to build and monetize these intangible assets. While more technical founders worry only about code and finances, CMO-founders worry about people. And, ultimately, it is people who buy products, recommend services, and build the real value of companies. 

The next generation of unicorns will not be built only by brilliant engineers or astute financiers, but by entrepreneurs who deeply understand human behavior and know how to create value through authentic connections. CMOs already possess these skills, and now it's time to apply them to building companies from the ground up. 

*Rodrigo Cerveira is CMO at Vórtx and co-founder of Strategy Studio. With 30 years of experience in strategy, leadership, and global and local business development, he specializes in brand building and creative strategy. He holds a degree in Advertising and Marketing from Faculdade Cásper Líbero, with an Extension in Management from INSEAD (European Institute of Business Administration).