I think there’s a Marketer #3 who does all of this but with AI. Builds the strategy, builds ads in Claude/Canva and builds the agent that runs them on Meta.
That person is becoming even more valuable today than Marketer #2.
I kinda like that Wes did not mention the use of AI for Marketer #2. The idea is that a high autonomy professional will decide the best tech for the job to be done.
I have started at nine or ten companies now depending on how you count, and end-to-end is the whole job in a fractional seat. The narrow version, hand over a strategy deck and leave, never survives the first thing that breaks in week two.
This article is awesome because it explains the way an entrepreneur thinks. I would love to see more of the entrepreneurial spirit inside of organizations because waiting around to make things happen is expensive. Feels like the annoying teenager who refuses to help you and in return offers, "I dunno I just work here." The person you're describing this article is exactly the kind of person I would want to hire.
Plus today you can use AI to create designs, mock ups, edit videos, interactive tools, dashboards, digital products... all sorts of things.
And they all would take less time to create that it would take to have a meeting about creating it. lol
Interesting POV....devils always in the details on this in terms of lack of roles/responsiblities, cross-training, executive level politcs, distributed leadership, spider web dependencies, etc. So, in theory and for the sake of velocity, I like it. In reality (based on my 13K hours of coaching), not sure it survives higher value work.
The Navy SEAL line is exactly it. The skill I'd add is listening at both ends. When I walk into a company that's changing shape, I spend real time with the founder and real time on the front line, because the people doing the work usually already know the fix. The 10,000-foot view holds once you've heard what's happening 5 feet above the ground.
So interesting. The line that matters most to me is the last one in your Marketer #2 list: shows the leadership team what it would look like.
In large companies I watched a lot of people do the first four steps brilliantly and lose at the fifth, because they walked in with the background instead of the ask. The end-to-end operator isn't only the person who can build it. It's the person who can bring it into the room so that it survives the room: the recommendation first, the cost named, the decision asked for. Marketer #2 wins because the leadership team can say yes to something concrete. That's a skill in itself, and almost nobody is taught it.
The two marketers example says it clearly: the second one shows leadership what it would look like instead of waiting for someone to fill in the details. You say the post is even more relevant with the rise of AI, and the second marketer is the reason. The Navy SEAL comparison fits, since those people assess fast, choose a course and carry it through.
I completely agree with the idea of taking responsibility for an outcome rather than simply completing your part of the task.
BUT...
I mostly work with deep subject matter experts who are often remarkably capable of solving problems end-to-end. They understand the technical problem deeply, the context, the exceptions, and frequently know what can go wrong.
So they do it themselves. Again!
Eventually they become the person everyone goes to because they can solve almost anything. Which can feel like enormous success, until they realise they've become the bottleneck. I've written about this as the Expert Trap.
I think there's an important distinction between being accountable for an end-to-end outcome and believing you need to personally deliver every part of it.
The really influential expert might be the person who understands the whole problem, knows where other relevant expertise sits in the business, facilitates fast collaboration, and still gets it done.
Being outcome-focused doesn't mean doing everything yourself to get to the outcome. The high-achiever is the one who learns how to navigate the organisation to get the best resources to get the best outcome.
The end-to-end idea is a useful antidote to handoff drift. I keep a one-line “definition of done” at the top of a project so every stage can make a decision without reopening the whole context.
The end-to-end capacity is what gets lost in heavy handoff cultures: someone who can hold a project from principle to delivery without translating at every junction. The rare thing is the tolerance for the parts that go slowly before they resolve. Most people optimize out of exactly those phases.
I know intrapreneur and entrepreneur aren't quite the same animal, but if someone has all the skills and resourcefulness to be an entrepreneur, I'm curious what keeps them choosing to stay an intrapreneur. Does that choice tend to shift over time?
With the mobile wave we saw the rise of growth teams because marketing teams at the time lacked the skills and personality types for what the new role required. However, overtime as these tactics became more mainstream growth teams were disbanded and reintegrated into traditional functions. Given that the end-to-end operator requires such different skills and mindset to traditional marketing roles do you foresee it following a similar trajectory where in the short run an entirely new set of roles may need to be created?
I think there’s a Marketer #3 who does all of this but with AI. Builds the strategy, builds ads in Claude/Canva and builds the agent that runs them on Meta.
That person is becoming even more valuable today than Marketer #2.
I kinda like that Wes did not mention the use of AI for Marketer #2. The idea is that a high autonomy professional will decide the best tech for the job to be done.
So good! You were ahead of the curve (as usual), Wes! Thanks for resharing this!
I have started at nine or ten companies now depending on how you count, and end-to-end is the whole job in a fractional seat. The narrow version, hand over a strategy deck and leave, never survives the first thing that breaks in week two.
This article is awesome because it explains the way an entrepreneur thinks. I would love to see more of the entrepreneurial spirit inside of organizations because waiting around to make things happen is expensive. Feels like the annoying teenager who refuses to help you and in return offers, "I dunno I just work here." The person you're describing this article is exactly the kind of person I would want to hire.
Plus today you can use AI to create designs, mock ups, edit videos, interactive tools, dashboards, digital products... all sorts of things.
And they all would take less time to create that it would take to have a meeting about creating it. lol
Strategy finally met execution - they had been copied on the same emails for years.
Interesting POV....devils always in the details on this in terms of lack of roles/responsiblities, cross-training, executive level politcs, distributed leadership, spider web dependencies, etc. So, in theory and for the sake of velocity, I like it. In reality (based on my 13K hours of coaching), not sure it survives higher value work.
The Navy SEAL line is exactly it. The skill I'd add is listening at both ends. When I walk into a company that's changing shape, I spend real time with the founder and real time on the front line, because the people doing the work usually already know the fix. The 10,000-foot view holds once you've heard what's happening 5 feet above the ground.
So interesting. The line that matters most to me is the last one in your Marketer #2 list: shows the leadership team what it would look like.
In large companies I watched a lot of people do the first four steps brilliantly and lose at the fifth, because they walked in with the background instead of the ask. The end-to-end operator isn't only the person who can build it. It's the person who can bring it into the room so that it survives the room: the recommendation first, the cost named, the decision asked for. Marketer #2 wins because the leadership team can say yes to something concrete. That's a skill in itself, and almost nobody is taught it.
The two marketers example says it clearly: the second one shows leadership what it would look like instead of waiting for someone to fill in the details. You say the post is even more relevant with the rise of AI, and the second marketer is the reason. The Navy SEAL comparison fits, since those people assess fast, choose a course and carry it through.
I completely agree with the idea of taking responsibility for an outcome rather than simply completing your part of the task.
BUT...
I mostly work with deep subject matter experts who are often remarkably capable of solving problems end-to-end. They understand the technical problem deeply, the context, the exceptions, and frequently know what can go wrong.
So they do it themselves. Again!
Eventually they become the person everyone goes to because they can solve almost anything. Which can feel like enormous success, until they realise they've become the bottleneck. I've written about this as the Expert Trap.
I think there's an important distinction between being accountable for an end-to-end outcome and believing you need to personally deliver every part of it.
The really influential expert might be the person who understands the whole problem, knows where other relevant expertise sits in the business, facilitates fast collaboration, and still gets it done.
Being outcome-focused doesn't mean doing everything yourself to get to the outcome. The high-achiever is the one who learns how to navigate the organisation to get the best resources to get the best outcome.
The end-to-end idea is a useful antidote to handoff drift. I keep a one-line “definition of done” at the top of a project so every stage can make a decision without reopening the whole context.
The end-to-end capacity is what gets lost in heavy handoff cultures: someone who can hold a project from principle to delivery without translating at every junction. The rare thing is the tolerance for the parts that go slowly before they resolve. Most people optimize out of exactly those phases.
I know intrapreneur and entrepreneur aren't quite the same animal, but if someone has all the skills and resourcefulness to be an entrepreneur, I'm curious what keeps them choosing to stay an intrapreneur. Does that choice tend to shift over time?
Capital Risk ?
With the mobile wave we saw the rise of growth teams because marketing teams at the time lacked the skills and personality types for what the new role required. However, overtime as these tactics became more mainstream growth teams were disbanded and reintegrated into traditional functions. Given that the end-to-end operator requires such different skills and mindset to traditional marketing roles do you foresee it following a similar trajectory where in the short run an entirely new set of roles may need to be created?