Most founders get bad marketing advice. This post breaks down the three biggest mistakes – and what actually works when the buyer’s watching.
A founder raises a few million. Product’s in motion.
“You should probably be on LinkedIn.”
“Let’s talk brand.”
This is how it starts.
Not with a sale. Not with a sharpened use case. But with a vague nod toward marketing – usually from someone who’s never sold a B2B fintech product in their life.
Let’s be clear: most VCs are smart. But when it comes to fintech marketing, they get it wrong. Not slightly – systemically.
They think marketing is lipstick. Or momentum theatre. Or a slide you fill in to make the Series B deck feel mature.
And founders – especially technical ones – trust them.
Because they’ve wired you money. Because they sit on ten boards. Because they use words like “narrative”.
So you end up doing what most early fintechs do:
You write a manifesto before you write your product page.
You hire a branding agency before you’ve written a single case study.
You publish your first blog post on “The future of [your sector]” before you’ve converted your first lead.
And six months later, you’ve got a pretty website, a dead Medium blog, and a sales team asking if marketing actually does anything.
Mistake 1: Thinking marketing = brand
This is the most common failure. A board member says:
“We need to get the brand right early.”
Translation: We don’t know what to say, so let’s make it look nice.
Brand is important. But in fintech, it’s not your first job.
Your first job is clarity – what you do, who it’s for, and why it solves a real problem.
Not a manifesto. A landing page that doesn’t scare people off.
Mistake 2: Funding replaces focus
Money makes people sloppy.
Founders go from shipping product to briefing designers. Everyone wants a slide.
Every investor intro triggers a homepage edit or a reworded use case.
Suddenly the story shifts depending on who’s in the room.
And when nothing feels quite right, they assume it’s a tone issue. A messaging issue.
So they burn £50k trying to “find their voice” – without ever talking to a buyer.
Mistake 3: Marketing = growth = attribution
This one’s especially dangerous.
A VC says:
“Let’s make sure it’s trackable.”
“We’ll need to prove CAC/LTV early.”
“Where’s the funnel?”
So the founders hire a growth agency.
SEO spreadsheets get built. 50 blog posts go live in 3 months. No one reads them. No one links to them in sales calls. No one converts.
But hey, it’s “attributable”.
You can show a funnel. You just can’t show a win.
And meanwhile, there’s a guy with a laptop making seven figures a year selling $97 fitness and diet PDFs.
No funding. No brand agency. Just sharp copy, a working funnel, and the ability to explain what he’s selling in under eight seconds.
He would market your fintech better than your entire team – because he’s actually got experience selling something.
The damage it does
Buyers aren’t stupid. They smell the VC echo chamber.
They hit the homepage and it’s all future-of-finance and smarter-solutions-for-modern-teams.
They check the blog and it’s GPT sludge about embedded payments.
They talk to sales, who have no idea what the content team is even publishing.
It’s not just waste. It’s erosion.
Founders end up burnt out, unsure if marketing “works”.
Buyers disengage. Teams fight over messaging.
And all of it could’ve been avoided with sharper focus and better inputs.
What actually works
Forget the bullshit. Start here:
- One killer homepage that explains the problem you solve
- Two or three landing pages that map directly to your highest-stakes use cases
- Case studies that show stakes, not just results
- A blog written by someone who’s seen a sales cycle – not just a briefing doc
- Copy that sounds like it came from a human, not a deck
That’s how due diligence becomes deal momentum.
You don’t need more content.
You need fewer blockers between what you do and what your buyer believes.
Final word
Good marketing isn’t decoration.
It’s a shortcut to trust.
The people funding you might never understand that.
But your next customer will.