Discover the top 7 non-technical startup roles every founder must hire to scale successfully—from product managers to growth marketers, ops leads, and chiefs of staff. Learn how each role drives traction, retention, and operational clarity. Perfect for early-stage startups looking to build a high-performing, well-rounded team beyond engineering.
Scaling isn’t just about code. The smartest startups grow by hiring the right non-technical minds first.
The myth that only engineers build startups is killing growth. Your first 10 hires should be builders and many of the most critical builders don’t write code. If you’re a founder still stuck doing everything yourself, this is your wake-up call.
In this guide, we break down the 7 most essential non-technical roles that unlock scale, streamline chaos, and bring your vision to life.
Without a PM, you’re shipping chaos. Vision needs a roadmap.
A great product manager translates raw ideas into a structured product strategy. They define the user experience, plan sprints, prioritize features, and ensure that what gets built actually solves real customer problems.
They bridge user feedback and engineering execution keeping your roadmap aligned with reality. In early-stage startups, they are often the voice of the user and the enforcer of focus.
Great product dies in silence without someone who can scale acquisition.
A skilled growth marketer is your customer acquisition engine. From funnel optimization and paid ads to SEO and email campaigns, they bring users through the door and keep them coming back.
They live and breathe metrics like CAC, LTV, activation rates, and retention. Whether it’s running growth experiments or building viral loops, this hire brings traction discipline to your vision.
Hire the person who ensures stuff actually gets done at scale.
Ops leaders are the hidden architects of scale. They build systems, automate workflows, track operational KPIs, and drive execution across departments.
When done right, they remove bottlenecks, improve efficiency, and allow founders to step out of the weeds. Process optimization is not bureaucracy it’s survival.
Startups win not just by acquiring, but by keeping. This role is non-negotiable.
Customer success isn’t reactive support it’s proactive retention. These team members design onboarding flows, solve pain points fast, and turn users into advocates.
They’re embedded in your feedback loop, helping product teams improve features and helping founders uncover what keeps users around. Great CS drives retention, reduces churn, and raises NPS.
You can’t scale what you can’t measure. CFOs don’t come later anymore.
Every startup burns cash. A sharp finance or business operations lead ensures you know where every dollar is going. They handle budgeting, financial forecasting, and capital allocation turning burn rate into a lever instead of a liability.
They’re also crucial in helping with fundraising narratives, board reports, and cost-to-revenue insights. Smart financial control is one of the most underrated growth multipliers.
Your product isn’t the pitch your story is.
Startups that scale fast usually tell their story better than the rest. A great Brand & Communications Lead shapes your narrative, builds trust, and makes sure your positioning doesn’t get lost in a sea of noise.
This hire owns your launch messaging, investor decks, social media presence, and employer brand. They make sure what you say across your site, product, and outreach actually lands. When you’re hiring through a curated platform like FoundersAreHiring, this role helps signal what your company stands for, not just what it does.
They don’t just polish language. They translate your vision into movements people want to join.
The most underrated early hire. Makes the founder 10x more effective.
A great Chief of Staff clears your mental bandwidth. They shadow your priorities, manage internal projects, coordinate across teams, and protect your calendar from chaos.
This role isn’t admin it’s strategic leverage. They help you make faster decisions, focus on what matters, and scale your leadership without burning out.
If you’re only hiring engineers, you’re building a product not a company.
Startups scale when vision meets structure. These roles are the backbone of that structure. Don’t delay these hires your future team, revenue, and sanity depend on them.
Start hiring smarter post your first role on FoundersAreHiring today.
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