Ask HN: Need tips for marketing for 2 technical founder for startup

I think that it is too early for you to do this. I would not go down the agency route, unless you have clear personas, messaging, targeting, and have managed agencies in the past so you can quickly assess all of the available options. Use an agency to scale what you have found to work (even if you only tested it on 10 ppl), otherwise they will be spinning their wheels trying to learn about your offering, customers, competitors, etc. to come up with strategy and plans.

I would not recommend you hire a consultant to own marketing until you have a clear understanding of your ideal customer and targets. You need to be sure about your ideal customers' company profile and pain points at a minimum. However, a consultant can help with well defined projects, especially if they require a specific kill sit (i.e. build 200 programatic pages for SEO to feature all of our integrations / programming languages we support/ SDKS, etc.).

I would recommend you lean into your VCs and network and speak with people that have done what you are looking to do. Your VCs might have a network of talent that is open to be non paying advisors (I do this myself).

In terms of growth motions you can put in play today, I would recommend you start documenting some of the cool things you are working on/ learning and posting that on your blog, and invest in documentation. Content is king, but it is a long game so I would start there. Another tactic you can deploy today is to start bidding on your brand name in Google Ads, to make sure you come up on the first page for that search. It shouldn't be too expensive either as it is your brand name. Look at that first page of results and see if you can find ways to add more links to that first page (do you have a LinkedIn page? What about a X account? Are you on Chunchbase? What about G2 and other product listing sites?)

Once you have done this, have had at least 20 conversations with your ideal target that is not from within your network and you still feel indicators of product-market fit, then look for a fractional CMO with experience with your market and buyer.

Generally, I wound't recommend you start paying for someone to own marketing until your seed round.

you don't need to. you should only hire for marketing once you've discovered a pathway to paying customers.

The work has to be done by the founders but both of you are unwilling to deal with the pain and grit required, you don't need advice, you need perspective.