You Don't Need a Team of 20 to Create a Movement

You Don't Need a Team of 20 to Create a Movement

Let me tell you about the most absurd marketing meeting I ever sat through.

I was consulting for a mid-sized tech company, and they'd assembled their entire marketing department to discuss a simple product launch email.

There were 23 people in the room:

• A CMO

• Three marketing directors

• Four channel managers

• Two copywriters

• Three designers

• A social media team of five

• A content team of four

• And a poor project manager trying to wrangle them all

After 90 minutes of circular discussion, multiple stakeholders arguing over whether a button should be blue or "Pacific blue," and at least four people who didn't speak at all (why were they even there?), they ended the meeting with... scheduling another meeting.

Two weeks and three meetings later, they finally sent an email that performed worse than the previous campaign.

Meanwhile, across town, a bootstrapped startup with a three-person marketing team had launched a product, created a viral social campaign, and built a community of 10,000 raving fans in the same time frame.

This, in a nutshell, is why the future belongs to tiny, nimble teams—not bloated marketing departments.

The Mathematics of Team Inefficiency

Let's get mathematical for a moment. Bear with me.

According to communication network theory, the number of possible communication channels in a team isn't linear—it's exponential.

The formula is n(n-1)/2, where n is the number of people.

So what does that mean in practice?

Don't worry I'm not your high school algebra teacher. To put it simply:

• A 3-person team has 3 possible communication channels

• A 5-person team has 10 possible communication channels

• A 10-person team has 45 possible communication channels

• A 20-person team has a staggering 190 possible communication channels

With a 20-person marketing team, you're not spending your time marketing—you're spending it managing communication channels, navigating politics, and sitting in meetings about meetings.

Research confirms this chaos: teams spend up to 30% of their week switching between tools, while disconnected data leads to missed opportunities and inconsistent messaging.

Is it any wonder that some of the most impactful marketing campaigns of recent years have come from tiny teams?

The Small Team Hall of Fame

The evidence isn't just anecdotal:

Notion's Minimal Marketing Miracle

When productivity tool Notion nearly died in 2015, founders Ivan Zhao and Simon Last made a radical decision: They fired their entire team, sublet their San Francisco office, and moved to Kyoto to rebuild from scratch.

This wasn't just cost-cutting—it was strategic minimalism.

With just two people, they rebuilt the entire product and approach to market. As Figma blog noted, "they'd riff off each other's ideas or tag team different parts of the work" creating a seamless flow that would have been impossible with layers of management .

When Notion relaunched in 2018, it skyrocketed to the top of Product Hunt and hit 1 million users with only a seed round of funding. Their tiny team created what some called "a milestone in the history of UX design." .

Today, Notion's marketing team remains notably small and focused, with dedicated resources ensuring they can "build, iterate and test quickly" without getting bogged down in bureaucracy .

Figma's Focused Force

Before being acquired by Adobe for $20 billion, Figma built a design tool that revolutionized an industry—with a remarkably lean team.

When product manager Badrul Farooqi joined Figma in its early days, the company "had yet to launch publicly" and was small enough that complex project management tools created "management overhead as the team and product grew" .

Their minimal, focused approach allowed them to take on established giants like Adobe and Sketch, ultimately building a product so compelling that Adobe had to acquire them rather than compete.

Basecamp's Opinionated Minimalism

Basecamp (formerly 37signals) built their project management tool with an intentionally small team.

Rather than trying to out-market larger competitors, they leaned into "being very opinionated about operations," with founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson becoming more visible than "the average SaaS founder" .

They didn't need a 20-person marketing team—they just needed a clear point of view and the courage to express it consistently.

Why Nimble Teams Win

The advantages of small, focused marketing teams go beyond just reducing overhead and communication complexities:

1. Decision Velocity Trumps Resources

In marketing, speed often beats perfection. Small teams can make decisions in minutes that might take days or weeks in larger organizations.

When Notion's Ivan Zhao was rebuilding their product, he spent "upwards of 18+ hours a day" in Figma, iterating rapidly.

That kind of velocity is simply impossible when every decision requires three approvals and a Slack thread.

The best marketing automation platforms centralize strategy, content creation, collaboration, and campaign deployment in one place, enabling lean teams to test, learn, and pivot rapidly while larger organizations are still scheduling the kickoff meeting to discuss potential approaches.

2. Specialization Without Silos

The strongest small teams aren't comprised of generalists—they're made up of specialists who can collaborate without artificial barriers.

Take NotionForms, built by a solo founder who combined technical expertise with marketing savvy to build a product generating $180K in annual recurring revenue.

There were no handoffs between departments, no competing priorities—just seamless execution.

The most effective approach isn't building a marketing department. It's assembling the right specialists for each specific challenge, enabling them to work without bureaucratic friction.

3. Clarity Through Constraint

Large teams often try to do everything at once—multiple channels, campaigns, initiatives—resulting in diluted impact across all of them.

Small teams are forced to focus. They can't pursue every marketing channel simultaneously, so they identify the highest-impact opportunities and execute them exceptionally well.

This constraint breeds clarity.

Rather than being mediocre at everything, small teams become exceptional at a few things that actually move the needle.

4. Authentic Over Polished

Large marketing departments often produce work that's technically perfect but emotionally sterile—overly edited, focus-grouped, and sanitized until any hint of humanity has been removed.

Small teams don't have time for that sh*t.

They produce marketing that feels authentic precisely because it hasn't been filtered through 15 different stakeholders.

Basecamp's approach to marketing centered on the authentic voices of its founders rather than perfectly polished campaigns.

This authenticity created deeper connections than any billboard campaign could have achieved.

The Modern Marketing Team: Modular, Not Monolithic

The future of marketing isn't about building ever-larger departments. It's about creating what we at Averi call "modular teams"—small core teams that can expand and contract based on specific needs.

Here's what this looks like in practice:

Core Team (2-4 People)

This is your foundation—the people who understand your brand, audience, and business objectives at a deep level. They set strategy, maintain brand consistency, and orchestrate execution.

For NotionForms, this was just one person—founder Julien Nahum. For Notion during its restart, it was two founders working in "their underwear all day" in Kyoto .

Your core doesn't need to be large—it needs to be aligned, focused, and empowered.

On-Demand Specialists

Instead of hiring full-time specialists for every marketing function, the modular approach brings in the perfect experts exactly when you need them.

Need a TikTok strategy? Bring in a TikTok specialist for that specific project.

Need a website redesign? Work with a conversion-focused designer for six weeks.

Need sophisticated email sequences? Partner with an email marketing expert.

The best platforms blend AI with human expertise, so your brand voice stays consistent and your content stands out. This approach gives you access to higher caliber talent for specific needs, without the overhead of full-time salaries for skills you only need occasionally.

Project-Based Teams

For major initiatives, assemble temporary teams of specialists who come together for the duration of the project.

This is what Basecamp did with their books and podcasts—bringing together the right people for specific initiatives rather than maintaining large permanent teams .

When Spencer Patterson built and sold a paywall platform for $3.5M, he did it as a solo founder, bringing in expertise only when needed.

This lean, focused approach allowed him to build a business generating $1.68M annually.

Breaking Free from Big Team Thinking

If you're currently trapped in marketing department bloat, don't worry you're not alone… here's how to start shifting toward a more effective modular approach:

1. Audit Your Team's Communication Tax

How much time is your team spending in meetings, Slack, and email versus actually executing marketing?

Map out all the communication channels and calculate how much of your resources are consumed by internal coordination rather than external impact.

For most marketing teams over 10 people, the answer is horrifying. Recent workflow studies show teams spend up to 30% of their week switching between tools, creating what experts call "tool fatigue."

2. Identify Your Core Functions

What marketing activities truly require full-time, in-house talent? Which functions could be handled more effectively by specialists brought in for specific initiatives?

Be ruthlessly honest. The goal isn't to build the biggest team—it's to create the most impact with the least overhead.

3. Start Small, Specific, and Specialized

Rather than hiring general marketing roles, build your team around specific skills that directly impact your most important metrics.

Notion's marketing team includes "a designer and a developer who are 100% allocated to marketing" rather than having to "beg, borrow or steal design and engineering resources". This focused approach allows them to "build, iterate and test quickly."

4. Create Systems for Modular Collaboration

The key to making modular teams work is having clear processes, documentation, and collaboration systems.

Figma's teams relied heavily on tools like Notion as their "single source of truth" to ensure everyone stayed aligned despite being distributed across functions and geography.

The best marketing automation platform is the one your team actually wants to use—because it makes their lives easier, not harder. With the right systems, you can seamlessly integrate specialists without losing momentum.

The Movement Mindset

The most successful small teams don't think like departments—they think like movements.

They're not trying to check all the marketing boxes or follow industry best practices.

They're trying to spark something meaningful that resonates deeply with a specific audience.

Notion didn't build a 50-person marketing team to hit 1 million users—they focused on creating a product people loved and telling its story authentically .

Basecamp didn't outspend their competitors—they outthought them, developing strong opinions and sharing them consistently .

These companies recognized that movements start with clarity, conviction, and consistent execution—not headcount.

The Averi Approach: Built for Modular Teams

This is exactly why we built Averi differently. Not as another tool to add to your chaotic stack, but as a creative execution platform that centralizes strategy, content creation, collaboration, and campaign deployment in one cohesive space.

Averi eliminates the chaos of bloated agencies, disconnected freelancers, and endless tool fatigue by providing:

• Unified campaign management (no more copy-pasting between tools)

• Real-time collaboration with built-in expert support

• AI-powered content strategy that adapts to your brand's voice

• Transparent analytics that show what's working—without a PhD in data science

The result? Marketing without the mess—calm, clear, and built to scale with intention.

Teams using Averi report moving from campaign concept to launch in a fraction of the time, thanks to integrated workflow tools and expert collaboration that feels natural, not forced.

Breaking the Big Team Myth

The next time someone tells you that you need to hire more marketers to compete, remember:

• Notion hit 1 million users with a tiny team

• Figma revolutionized an industry before growing their marketing team

• Basecamp built a devoted following through clear positioning, not massive campaigns

• NotionForms generates $180K in annual revenue with a solo founder

The evidence is clear: You don't need a team of 20 to create a movement.

You need clarity, focus, and the right expertise at the right time.

In fact, your oversized marketing department might be the very thing holding you back from creating the impact you want.

Why not find out?

Try Averi