[lsc]

I agree you need someone who understands your target market from the beginning. However, I think that for some markets, a conventional 'marketing guy' would be the wrong choice... for example, I sell infrastructure to SysAdmins. Yeah, if I wanted to sell infrastructure to managers, I'd need a conventional marketing guy. But for my current target market? I am pretty close to the optimal 'marketing guy' because I'm building a product that I would want to buy myself, and I'm selling it to people who buy it for the same reasons i would buy it.

I think it's essential to have someone on the team who understands the target market, their needs, their culture, and their feelings. It's really difficult to know how to build something you don't want for someone you don't really understand.