Marketing Specialist

Marketing Content Lead sparQ is building the WordPress of business software - a free, self-hostable operations platform for small businesses that replaces Slack, QuickBooks, Jobber, and a dozen other SaaS tools with one system. We're pre-launch, our product is ready, and now we need to build the audience that will drive it. This is a rare opportunity for a sharp, creative, self-driven marketer to own the entire content presence of a product from day one. You won't be managing a content calendar that someone else built. You'll be building it. You'll be writing, producing, publishing, and iterating - and working directly with the founder and dev team. We produce technical content for developers and self-hosters, and practical content for small business owners. You'll do both - with AI tools as your force multiplier. Writing & Publishing (your core output) Publish 3 blog posts per week - a mix of SEO-driven how-tos, opinion pieces, product updates, and thought leadership targeted at SMB owners and self-hosters Help publish technical architecture posts and developer guides in collaboration with the dev team (they'll give you the knowledge, you give it narrative shape) Produce comparison pages, landing page copy, product release notes, and newsletter content Maintain a consistent voice across all written properties: sparqone.com, developer.sparqone.com, help.sparqone.com Video & Animation Produce short-form explainer and tutorial videos using AI tools (Synthesia, HeyGen, Kling, or similar) for YouTube and social Create product walkthroughs, feature highlights, and "how sparQ replaced X" style videos Build a YouTube channel presence from scratch - thumbnails, titles, descriptions, channel optimization Community & Distribution Drive organic growth via Reddit (r/selfhosted, r/smallbusiness, r/HVAC, r/Python), Hacker News, Product Hunt, and niche forums Help manage the sparQ community forum (Flarum at community.sparqone.com) - seeding discussions, responding to users, surfacing feedback Support beta tester outreach for the Ignition program - writing DMs, forum posts, and cold emails Analytics & Iteration Track content performance in Google Analytics 4 across all sparqone.com subdomains Use data to figure out what's working and write more of it; kill what isn't Report weekly to the founder: what published, what performed, what's next What We're Looking For Hard Requirements Strong writer - clear, opinionated, and able to calibrate between "talk to a plumber" and "talk to a Python developer" Comfortable using AI tools productively (not just aware of them - actively using them in your workflow) Can read and understand technical documentation well enough to explain it to a non-technical audience Self-directed - this role has high autonomy and requires someone who creates their own structure Strong Signals (nice to have) Personal blog, newsletter, YouTube channel, or other content property you've built Experience with video production or AI video generation tools Familiarity with developer communities (GitHub, HN, r/selfhosted, Product Hunt) Experience with SEO - keyword research, on-page optimization, link building basics Background in or genuine interest in small business / field service / trades industries Degree in marketing, communications, journalism, or computer science - or no degree at all with great work to show Tools & Environment We use AI extensively. You should too. Expected stack for this role: Writing -Claude, ChatGPT, Notion or similar for drafting and editing Video / Animation - HeyGen, Synthesia, Kling AI, CapCut, or equivalent SEO - Ahrefs or Semrush (we'll provide access) Analytics - Google Analytics 4 across sparqone.com subdomains Design - Canva, Figma basics, or whatever you use Community - Discourse forum, Reddit, Hacker News, Product Hunt What Success Looks Like 30 Days You know the product well enough to demo it to a stranger First 12 blog posts published across 3 content pillars you defined YouTube channel created and first 2 videos published Actively posting in 5+ relevant communities 90 Days Content machine running at 3 posts/week without prompting 10+ YouTube videos live with growing watch time At least one piece of content driving meaningful inbound traffic or signups Ignition beta program has 50+ engaged testers partly from your outreach 6 Months sparQ has a recognizable voice and growing audience in self-hosted and SMB communities SEO footprint established - ranking for at least 20 target keywords YouTube channel at 500+ subscribers with consistent upload cadence Content directly attributable to trial signups and managed hosting conversions How to Apply A short intro (35 sentences) about why this role and why now Links to writing samples, a portfolio, a YouTube channel, a blog - anything you've produced One piece of content you'd pitch for sparQ's first week - just a title and 2-sentence angle is enough We do look at every link you send.