👋 Hi, it’s Kyle and welcome to Growth Unhinged, my weekly newsletter exploring the hidden playbooks behind the fastest-growing startups.

I’ve been fascinated by how quickly GTM teams are adopting AI and nerding out on technical topics like Claude Code, context layers, Claude skills, and advanced AI-native plays. This made me wonder: what’s the new resume for showing off AI for GTM skills?

Louise de Sadeleer, growth marketer at Tella, makes a convincing case that every marketer needs their own GitHub. In today’s guest post she explains why and walks you through exactly how to do it. (Before you ask, yes I have a GitHub, too!)

I don't know which marketer needs to hear this, but you need your own GitHub.

In one year from now, you'll only be hireable if you've shared what you've built:

This is what I posted on LinkedIn the other day. My post drove 1,200 new followers in a single day, despite only taking me two minutes to write.

Hundreds of people agreed. Many of them were hiring marketers and confirmed they prioritized candidates who build with AI.

Others protested with comments like "stop forcing marketers to become engineers". They argued that being hireable depended on things like networking and creativity, instead.

Owning a GitHub and being creative or good at networking aren't mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite.

You should have a GitHub as a marketer because it lets you show product thinking: knowing which problems your customers have and solving them with new features, skills, or apps. It can even be a way to 'crowdsource' interest in new features before including them in a product.

Don’t worry: setting it up isn’t as complicated as it sounds.

Here's how to set up and brand your own GitHub from scratch:

If applicable, ask to be added to your team by an admin.

Why GitHub CLI? It lets you tell Claude things like "create a public repo named after my GitHub username with a profile README" and it'll actually run the commands, rather than clicking around the GitHub website.

This generates a README.md (i.e. markdown file) that you can fill in as an "About" section that'll show up on your profile automatically.

Keep the description short and tangible. No LinkedIn-esque bullshit. Here's mine as an example:

My thinking is that, for marketers, GitHub acts as a personal landing page replacing a portfolio. So, link to meaningful work or places (e.g. YouTube, X, TikTok) for people to see more from you. Your description should include: where you work, where you post, and what you're into.

Connect your socials by adding links (in left side-bar), update the short bio, and add your profile picture.

Optional: Set a fun status. Mine says "gone surfing".

I pinned the ones that got the most stars. This skill that turns long-form videos into short-form social clips got 450+ stars.

I always include a cover photo, a description of the code/project, and what problem I'm solving. Your code will mostly be used by non-technical people, so make sure they understand how to navigate your repo best.

Tell Claude to include installation instructions for non-technical people. I like to include explainer videos, gifs, or workflow diagrams. You can simply tell Claude or Codex to generate diagrams or motion graphics like these:

I went viral on X with a few of the skills listed on my GitHub. This meant that people starred the repository or "forked" my code (i.e. made their own copy to build on). The more helpful code and projects you share, the more people will follow you to stay up to date.

Beware that some people will hate you for doing this.

For engineers, looking like you don’t care is cool. So, investing in a README.md is seen as kind of lame.

I agree, to an extent, that your projects should speak for themselves. Once you've spent some time on a short "About" section just get back to shipping useful tools :)

Hundreds of people have asked me questions about this. Here are the three that came up most often.

Many of you might be shipping code directly to production in private repos. In which case, this activity can be tracked on your contribution monitor, but the code will remain private.

Regardless of whether or not you share code on GitHub, my suggestion is to build tools of your own. Things you think the world needs. This could be apps you use to organize your closet, help you work out, or automate your family life.

Share the code open source (for free), if you're feeling generous. This is what will happen:

Share code → People use the app/code/skill → They love you → You build audience (on socials/GitHub) → You become more hireable.

I prefer GitHub to a website portfolio because projects are updated in real-time whenever you ship anything new (i.e. commit new code). This lets you get rid of the additional step of updating a website, for example.

Not engineers, but builders. "Builders" are people who combine product management, coding, design, and marketing.

I don't make the rules, it's hiring teams at the coolest startups that are changing what they look for in marketers. But one principle remains: marketers should create value for free, and shipping code written with AI is just another way to do this.

Don't panic, start small.

In my case, if I see a UI improvement in Tella that I can easily fix, I do it without bothering our devs (mostly). If I built a Claude skill that helps me edit videos faster, I share it on GitHub for free.

Having a GitHub with public repos on it is a way for marketers to indicate "yes, I use AI to build cool stuff" and "no, I don't just use it to post slop on LinkedIn".

If you're a marketer who contributes to a product or builds apps and skills in their free time, you're part of a minority. This is the hopeful and exciting part. Hopefully, seeing how quickly you can go from prompt box to public repo used by others motivates some of you to share more of what you build.

Related resources: