Founder Associate / Chief of Staff to CEO

As a Founder Associate / Chief of Staff at Heron, you will work alongside our CEO and Heron co-founder Johannes. This role will encompass a variety of potential responsibilities, but is ideal for someone who wants to make a career in Sales.

Please do not apply to this role if you are not interested in Sales!

What you will specifically work on will change week-to-week. Some current or recent projects that a Founder Associate could work on include:

• Define and execute go-to-market strategy for a new customer segment e.g., commercial insurance

• Find leads, build a sales pipeline, join sales calls

• Analyze customer and prospect data to inform decision making

• Scale Johannes, including basic admin tasks like scheduling when needed (we anticipate less work like this, but it may occur)

• Any other project that is impactful to Heron!

We don’t expect the ideal candidate to have had prior experience with any of the projects above. We believe this role will particularly suit strong generalists with a growth mindset, and who want to learn quickly and make an impact across all parts of a fast growing startup

We believe a successful Founder Associate will relate to some of the following actions. If you’re not sure, reach out to us and ask!

• Be interested in Sales. This role is an amazing opportunity to be in a high-intensity sales environment, and learn very quickly.

• Make decisions in a structured and evidence-based way. Break down complex problems into simple components & frameworks

• Communicate effectively with anyone, from a Heron software engineer to an enterprise customer — this not only includes verbal communication, but also written communication (e.g., strategy memos) and presentations (e.g., customer pitch deck)

• Have a technical background & can solve quantitative problems, for example (but not limited to) majored in a technical degree, worked as a software engineering or a data scientist, comfortable working with data & basic code. Heron is a very technical company, so we believe that even our Founder Associates can profit from technical skills

• Analyze data (SQL, spreadsheets), maybe even automate tasks (e.g., python)

• Execute tasks independently, possess a strong work ethic

• Learn even unfamiliar areas of the business rapidly

• Promote an outcome-focused, low-bureaucracy team culture

Above all else, we value people who want to make an impact in their work. Here are some of the behaviors that we expect of all Herons:

• Scrappy and creative: when faced with an obstacle, you will either overcome it by pure determination (i.e., by hand), or find an unconventional approach or ‘hack’ to navigate it.

• Persistent: you may not always find the right answer or person immediately, but you're motivated to keep on trying until you do so. You’ll go the extra mile - including Flying to Gainesville - if that’s what it takes.

• Pilot not passenger: at a fast-growing company like Heron we need people who jump on opportunities unprompted and drive them to a great outcome, rather than folks who wait to be told what to do.

• Excited to work in a fast-paced, high-growth, team-based environment: we aim to move quickly and decisively, but together. You’ll be a great team player and do what it takes for the team to succeed.

• Competitive compensation, including equity

• Based full-time, and in-person in our NYC office, with occasional travel to customers (across the country) and company retreats (often in London)

• Your choice of top-of-the-line equipment to fit out your desk in our office

• Competitive benefits package: health, dental, vision with partial coverage for dependents; 401K; uncapped PTO; parental leave

• Free mental health support via Spill - on-demand access to therapy

• Weekly company lunches (always inclusive and vegan-friendly - especially if you like Vietnamese food!)

• Applicants from any background and gender are welcome and we have a zero tolerance policy on discrimination

1. Initial conversation

2. Take-home task

3. Interview with team (typically 4x scheduled as a block)

4. References

We are Heron Data, a Series A stage company based in New York and London.

• At Heron, we use the latest advances in AI and LLMs to automate document processing. Our software handles emails, analyzes attachments, and takes actions like updating CRMs or requesting more info to execute workflows end-to-end for our customers. We serve a range of businesses including some of the world's largest fintechs, banks and other specialty finance companies, commercial insurers, and more.

• Our largest product automates underwriting for small business lenders and other specialty finance companies. We eliminate cumbersome manual processes and enable our customers to provide their services with much greater speed, precision, and fairness.

• We are a rapidly growing company with over 150 customers in financial services and beyond who trust us to be embedded in critical processes - without us, their businesses stop. We analyze tens of thousands of documents a day, including over 20 million individual bank transactions daily for our customers. We continue to grow into more segments and workflows: further into lending, banking, insurance. And we think there's much more we can do!

• We are a lean, scrappy and committed team with a flat structure and collaborative culture. Our team brings together a wealth of experience from great tech companies including Facebook, Spotify, Revolut and many other startups from around the world.

• With team members from five different continents, we embrace multiculturalism and diversity. From company events to everyday interactions, we make sure everyone feels welcome and accommodate all cultural and dietary requirements.

• Since our launch in September 2020, at the end of the S20 batch, we've experienced a lot of growth! Today, we serve over 150 customers and have over $7M in ARR. Read more about our mission here