Founding Growth Lead

Our client is a venture-backed seed-stage startup that is building autonomous AI systems to operate factories. Their AI agents learn specific factory operations identify root causes of downtime and deliver real-time corrective actions directly to production teams.

We are seeking an entrepreneurial self-directed Founding Growth Lead with 2 to 6 years of experience to own the entire top-of-funnel go-to-market (GTM) motion from scratch. As the first dedicated GTM hire your primary #1 KPI will be putting qualified meetings on the calendar with operations leaders manufacturing executives and C-suite buyers. You will dynamically navigate complex consultative conversations with factory operators to uncover pain points around downtime yield loss and margin.


What You Will Do:

• Own Top-of-Funnel Pipeline: Drive lead generation through an experimental mix of outbound campaigns product-led growth (PLG) marketing and field events.
• Conference & Field Mastery: Travel 13 times per month to represent the company at multi-day manufacturing trade shows industry conferences and on-site customer visits to build face-to-face relationships.
• Experimentation: Build and run your own outbound tooling stack (sequencing CRM targeting lists) without requiring dedicated operations support.
• Scale the GTM Motion: Lay the foundational groundwork for the sales process with a clear path toward owning post-sales and eventually building out the growth team.

Key Requirements:

• Experience: 26 years of experience across top-of-funnel B2B sales business development or go-to-market at an early-stage startup OR a background in management consulting investment banking or private equity.
• Event-Led Growth: Proven track record of directly sourcing meetings and pipeline from physical events conferences or trade shows.
• Autonomy & Tooling: Ability to independently set up and operate an outbound sales stack (CRM sequencing targeting).
• Communication Skills: Exceptional ability to quickly synthesize complex operational problems and think on your feet during ambiguous high-stakes conversations.
• Travel Flexibility: Willingness to travel 13 times a month for multi-day events and client site visits.
• Nice-to-haves: Early-stage startup experience (seed/pre-seed) as an AE BDR or Growth Lead; exposure to PLG/self-serve motions; familiarity with manufacturing or hardware industries.