A day in the life of a marketer-turned-founder

A field report you wouldn't want to miss.

Everyone says becoming a founder is just the next step in your marketing career.

You’ve launched campaigns, managed budgets, and led teams. You’ve “driven growth.”

So obviously, running your own thing should be the natural progression.

You already know how to position, package, and pitch.

What could go wrong?

Plenty.

Because here’s the part no one tells you: you don’t graduate from marketing.

You just carry it into every other part of the business, then duct-tape it to ops, sales, client service, finance, and maybe a little existential dread.

This is not a productivity guide.

It’s just how my days go these days.

7:00 AM — Welcome to the fire

Wake up. Roll over. Check Slack like it’s breaking news.

There’s a message from a client in another time zone:

“Hey— can we get this live by EOD?”

It’s a campaign we scoped two weeks ago. Copy just got approved.

But sure. Let’s get it live by EOD.

You’re a founder now. You don’t say “not my job.” You say “on it.”

8:30 AM — Calendar optimism

Make coffee. Open your calendar.

You’ve blocked off time for “strategy” and “deep work” like some kind of corporate monk.

You’ve also accepted 4 calls, 1 client review, and a team sync.

There’s 30 minutes left for execution. That should be enough to rewrite a brand narrative, respond to 17 emails, and get a LinkedIn post up that sounds both effortless and brilliant.

You write one line. Then delete it.

Spend 10 minutes scrolling for a meme to make it seem casual.

11:00 AM — The shift begins

Team sync.

You ask smart questions. Try not to sound like the person who still thinks in campaign metrics.

Say things like:

“Let’s solve for revenue, not impressions.”
“Can we decouple growth from headcount?”
“Does this scale without founder oversight?”

You have no idea what you’re eating for lunch, but you do have thoughts on pipeline attribution models.

1:00 PM — Sales, support, BD, and lunch (kind of)

Client calls. Looms. Follow-ups.

You switch from marketing lead to sales exec to post-sale strategist in under 90 minutes.

Someone forwards an RFP with a 48-hour deadline. You say yes, obviously. Then you text a friend to ask if they know a good proposal designer.

Lunch is cold coffee and peanut butter on a spoon. Gourmet!

4:00 PM — The calendar bites back

You see a “Join now” pop-up for a call you forgot.

You wing it. Nail it. Get a “This is great” from a client who doesn’t know you’re sweating in your gym shorts.

You celebrate by rewriting half of a landing page you assigned to someone else.

7:30 PM — Dinner + backlog

Dinner arrives. You forget to eat while it’s hot.

You eat while editing a testimonial that somehow became 700 words long.

Your partner asks how your day was. You respond with “productive,” then immediately think of five things you didn’t do.

9:00 PM — Founder mode, phase two

Inbox zero is a lie. So is “just five more minutes.”

You knock out some internal docs, update your P&L, and try rewriting your “About” page for the fifth time this quarter.

You wonder what would happen if you just went back to being a Senior Marketing Manager somewhere.

Then you close the tab and go back to writing.

11:30 PM — Wrap it up

You remember you never posted that LinkedIn thing. You save it for tomorrow.
It’s always tomorrow.

So… why do it?

Because no one’s in your way.

You decide the positioning, pick the clients, and call the shots.

And yeah, some days you eat peanut butter for lunch and rewrite a call-to-action 17 times.

But you’re building something that’s yours.

And for the first time, you’re not just marketing the dream. You’re living inside the hard part.

And it’s not perfect, but it’s real.