Every pre-PMF founder I talk to is overspending on at least one of the seven service buckets and under-investing in one of the others. After building the seven-service stack for 18 of my own ventures, here's the unsentimental view: which services are non-negotiable in year 1, which are seasonal, and which are vanity until you have $1M+ ARR.
The 7 services (and which are real)
- AI Solutions — building the product itself if it's AI-powered (non-negotiable)
- Web Dev — landing page + product UI (non-negotiable)
- Brand Identity — logo, type, voice (seasonal, but high ROI)
- Marketing — SEO + paid + lifecycle email (becomes non-negotiable at MRR)
- Video — product demos, brand films (vanity until PMF; required after)
- Business Development — decks, SOPs, partnerships (situational, high ROI when relevant)
- Complete Social Media Solution — strategy + content + posting (non-negotiable for B2C, optional for early B2B)
Year 1: the 3 you can't skip
Pre-revenue, pre-PMF, you need exactly these:
1. AI Solutions / Product build
Obvious — if you don't have a product you don't have a business. The variable: whether you have an in-house tech co-founder or you need this service externally. Most pre-seed founders need this externally.
2. Web Dev
Your landing page is your most important marketing asset. $0 ARR but 100% of visitors are evaluating you on the landing page. If your dev partner ships the product but not the marketing site, you have a half-business. Hire whoever does both, or you'll re-do half of it later.
3. Brand Identity (minimal)
You don't need a 60-page brand book. You need: 1 logo, 1 type system, 1 voice guideline page, 1 color palette. ~$1500–$3000 of work. Skipping this means everything you ship in year 1 looks worse than your competitor's deck.
Year 1.5: add marketing once you have a paying customer
Marketing without a product is theater. Marketing with even one paying customer is the most important thing you can do.
The minimum marketing stack for a 1-customer startup:
- One channel where you have measurable acquisition (paid ads, content SEO, or outbound — pick one)
- Email capture + a 5-touch nurture sequence
- One conversion event you trust enough to optimize against
Vanity at this stage: "brand awareness campaigns," influencer sponsorships, PR pushes.
Social media: B2C vs B2B reality check
B2C founders: social media is your distribution. Day 1, channel-relevant content goes out daily. You either invest here or you don't grow.
B2B / enterprise founders: social media is brand maintenance, not customer acquisition. LinkedIn + 1 other channel, posted 3× a week, founder-led voice. Don't hire an agency to run founder accounts — it's a tell.
The middle case (SMB SaaS, prosumer tools): mixed model. Founder LinkedIn + brand IG. Costs ~$1500–$3000/mo if outsourced.
Video: vanity until PMF
Hot take: most pre-revenue founders should not be commissioning brand films. The right early video investment:
- A 60-second product demo (do it yourself with screen recording + cleanup) — < $500
- One founder explainer (founder-on-camera) — < $1000
- A few short-form reels showing the product (cut down from the demo)
Save the $30k brand film for after you have $50k ARR. At that point video has positive ROI; before that it's an indulgence.
Business Development: when to spin it up
BizDev as a service includes: pitch decks, investor updates, partnership packets, SOPs, internal playbooks. You need it when:
- You're raising in the next 6 months — pitch deck + financial model + data room
- You're hitting hiring inflection — onboarding SOPs, role definitions, comp bands
- You're entering channel partnerships — co-marketing kits, partner one-pagers, joint case studies
It's situational, but when the situation hits, it's high-leverage.
When to in-house, outsource, or skip
| Service | In-house when… | Outsource when… | Skip when… |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI / Web Dev | You have a tech co-founder | Pre-Series A or solo founder | Never |
| Brand | Year 2+, after PMF | Year 1, low-cost engagement | Never (always need basics) |
| Marketing | $500k+ ARR | $10k–$500k MRR | Pre-revenue (mostly) |
| Social media | B2C from day 1 | B2B with founder approval | Enterprise / niche B2B |
| Video | $500k+ ARR + content engine | Specific launches | Pre-PMF |
| BizDev | Series A+ | Fundraise + partnerships | Steady state |