About the job
The Company
1848 Ventures is a venture studio focused on consistently building, launching, and scaling a portfolio of B2B SaaS companies that harness the power of AI to fuel the future of small and medium sized business.
Backed by Westfield®, a respected leader in commercial insurance, 1848 Ventures extends beyond insurance by launching digital products that address the uncertainties that businesses face on a daily basis. We focus on industries that are the driving force of our economy including construction, real estate, hospitality, retail, and restaurants. Westfield’s backing affords us the agility to explore innovative ideas, weather uncertainties, and pursue ambitious ventures with confidence.
Our talented team of hands-on venture builders, data scientists, engineers, and designers combined with repeatable playbooks allows us to rapidly validate, build, launch, and scale customer focused AI enabled startups.
At 1848 Ventures culture is not just a concept – it is the essence of what we do, our behaviors, rituals, and practices. It’s the actions that enable our set of evolving relationships and the experiences they create. The culture is grounded in the practice of virtues. This enables our pursuit of excellence, which we express and measure by our actions. We act on these behaviors in the “how” of our work, our interactions with others, and the conduct we hold ourselves and others accountable to, individually and collectively.
Read on to discover how your skillset and experiences may help contribute to our approach.
The Opportunity
In this role, you'll be at forefront of early-stage venture building. This is a unique opportunity to guide the cyclical process of creating validated AI-powered ventures that serve SMBs. Dive into industry challenges, understand the customer, and spearhead experimentation that helps derisk early-stage concepts. We're looking for someone who will embrace this highly iterative and ambiguous work, understanding that this ongoing cycle is key to the success of our Studio.
At 1848 Ventures, we're looking for individuals who are enthusiastic about developing early-stage ventures, particularly in the realms of AI and customer-centric tech. Success in this role requires comfort in a fast-paced, experiment-driven environment with the ultimate goal of achieving problem-solution fit. If you thrive in this type of space, this opportunity could be an excellent fit for you.
What You'll Be Doing
In short, you'll be at the forefront of our venture-building approach, enabled by our unique Studio Model. We don't have 'standard' days here, but your day-to-day will largely be filled with:
- Customer Discovery and Synthesis: conduct extensive customer discovery, ensuring a deep understanding of pain points, JTBD, needs, and preferences
- Market Research: conduct comprehensive market research, analyzing industry trends, competitors, and potential market gaps to inform venture development (and turn analysis into right-sized market sizing to inform decisions)
- Business Model and Value Proposition Ideation and Iteration: turn analysis and insights into early-stage business models and value propositions and continually refine these through in-market learning and experimentation
- Experimentation Planning and Execution: develop and execute experiments to validate assumptions and hypotheses, embracing the ethos of 'failing fast' and learning from failures
- Note that we leverage a significant breadth of experimentation techniques, from customer interviews to prototyping to marketing experimentation, etc. - you should have comfort with a breadth of methodologies
- Day-to-Day Decision-Making: leverage data and insights to drive informed decisions (keeping in mind the highly ambiguous nature of early-stage work), constantly reassessing and iterating on venture concepts
- Collaborating with Diverse Teams: work closely with a technical co-lead and other expert team members, including product designers and data scientists
Qualifications
- Ability to connect the dots between disparate information and make decision points in the face of uncertainty and often conflicting information. Have a take, test it, iterate.
- Significant experience in steering product development within the dynamic landscape of early-stage startups (or other similar early-stage environments).
- Demonstrated proficiency in conducting early-stage customer discovery and market research to drive informed decision-making in the development process.
- Proven track record of balancing the art and science – Product/Design/Creativity - bringing ideas to life through the art of the possible while being grounded in reality.
- Passion for taking complex ideas and communicating them in a way that is clear and simple to both internal and external stakeholders.
- Humility and open-mindedness, actively seeking feedback and being receptive to the possibility of pivots or idea termination.
- A minimum of at least 8 years of professional experience, and while startup experience is not mandatory, a proven ability to conceptualize, strategize, and execute tasks independently, coupled with a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities in dynamic environments, is essential.
You might be a great fit if...
- You have a passion for true early-stage work - connecting dots, being 'wrong' more than you're 'right', getting your hands dirty, sitting in the ambiguity.
- You don't attach your personal worth to an idea. The vast majority of early-stage ideas we come up with will fail - we're a team who tests, iterates, and makes the tough calls. If you're prone to falling in love with an idea early, you may find our environment challenging.
We are an equal opportunity employer/minority/female/disability/protected veteran.
