Own the full-cycle sales process, closing inbound deals and generating outbound pipeline across SMB, mid-market, and enterprise segments. Develop the company’s initial sales motion, including ICP definition, messaging, pricing conversations, CRM processes, and repeatable playbooks. The role requires cold outreach, flexible sales execution across deal sizes, and daily in-person collaboration with the founding team in New York City.
Why This Role Exists
Demand for our product has outpaced our ability to close deals ourselves. We need a Founding Account Executive to take the wheel on sales: someone who can both convert the inbound interest we’re already generating and build new pipeline from scratch.
What You’ll Do
- Close inbound deals. Own the full-cycle sales process for warm leads coming inbound, from first call to signed contract.
- Build outbound pipeline. Prospect, cold call, cold DM, and cold email your way into new accounts.
- Sell across segments. Move fluidly between SMB, mid-market, and enterprise deals. Each have a different sales motion, cycle length, and stakeholder map, so you’ll need to flex your approach accordingly.
- Build the sales motion from the ground up. As the first AE, you’ll help define our ICP, messaging, pricing conversations, CRM/process setup, and what a repeatable sales playbook looks like at Kernel.
- Work in-person, in NYC. Be in the room with the founding team daily.
What We’re Looking For
- 2–4 years of quota-carrying, full-cycle AE experience, ideally with both inbound closing and outbound prospecting responsibility. Flexible on years for the right person.
- Comfort operating across deal sizes and buyer types. You’ll need to run an SMB deal at speed and navigate a longer enterprise sales cycle with multiple stakeholders.
- Genuine enthusiasm for cold outreach. This isn’t a role for someone who exclusively wants qualified leads handed to them.
- Enthusiastic about building out a working sales motion from the ground up.
- Based in or willing to relocate to NYC, and excited to work in-person
$180-200K OTE
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