At what point does a startup hire outside help for business analytics?

I am very interested in joining a start up. Some background on me (for context, not promotional): My area of focus is business analytics - dashboards, marketing and sales databases, forecasting, and advanced merchandising and customer insights - but not heavy-duty engineering. My question is this: what stage of startup is most likely suited with my skillset? I would like to get in on the ground floor before someone else builds a messy data foundation, but it seems like < 10 person startups are hard to connect with. Is there a platform for contract startup work that you all would recommend? Or is advertising/networking online better for this purpose?