As an often-self-employed solo developer with few marketing skills, what seems to kind of map to 'adding a marketing employee', is getting something working into the hands of a user/customer/client. At that point the product begins to take shape fast.<p>I've usually corresponded with them before this happens of course, so maybe the part about finding a prospective user is actually me doing marketing. I want to make sure they are really interested and that they seem like they'd be patient and generous with good-quality feedback. And don't have a deadline, that practically goes without saying. A client like that is almost like your cofounder.<p>After product-meets-reality, I ask lots of questions, even about things I had already assumed. I even question the things that are seemingly working, to try to get from 'that part works great' to 'actually, now that you mentioned it, there might be a problem there.' It takes a lot of back-and-forth, so you are really risking annoyance, hence look for the right person.<p>I try to first pick out high-return changes I can do in a few weeks. I don't try to turn things faster than that in the beginning. I may have found a big problem in the design, a misunderstanding, a complete miss on something newly-obvious etc. A back-to-the-drawing board issue might take a lot longer. On something like that, having had someone working marketing earlier would no doubt have saved a lot of time.<p>I save by not paying someone, but I pay with a longer and less predictable development cycle. That trade-off works for me; might not for others. As well, since this is Hacker News, I should say that with outside investors they would no doubt prefer hiring professional marketing and sales folks.