[Hiring] Venture Execution Director @Birg

Role Description

We are hiring someone with the instincts of a founder who has done zero-to-one more than once, who can run our machine without the CEO in the room, and who earns enough trust that he stops checking. rthmc is a machine-based studio: ideation, MVP, and scale are three separate lanes, each with its own gates and its own standard. The system is not a suggestion — your first job is to own it and hold every venture to it. But the machine handles the black-and-white on purpose, which is exactly why you cannot be black-and-white. We need someone who sees color: who reads the signal under the noise, knows which venture to push and which to pause before the dashboard says so, and has the taste to make the call the playbook cannot.

This role is how the CEO steps back responsibly: it exists so ventures ship on time, on system, and on standard, while he spends his attention only where no one else can — capital, partnerships, and the next bet.

The mission is to launch 2 ventures in the first 6 months, flawlessly, on the system, then reach 5 to 7 ventures across 12 months on that same system, running without the CEO. This is a pace most studios never attempt, because most build one company at a time. It is possible here for two reasons: the machine already exists, and AI does the work of a team, you will lean on both, hard.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the Machine
  • Hold ideation, MVP, and scale as three distinct lanes, each with its own gate criteria — a venture earns its way to the next lane, it isn't waved through.
  • Treat strict adherence to the system as the point, not a formality. Drift is the enemy, in every venture, no matter how promising it looks.
  • Refine the gates themselves as real patterns emerge across ventures — the system improves through use, not in the abstract.
• Own Launch
  • Own each venture end to end, from defining readiness criteria to the day it actually ships.
  • Decide sequencing and priority inside a venture yourself — that call is yours, not a committee's.
  • Be the one accountable for whether a venture actually launches, not just whether it stayed "on track."
• Give the CEO the Read
  • Deliver an honest, weekly signal on portfolio health: what's working, what's stuck, what's at risk.
  • Report signal, not status — flag what's actually threatening the mission, not a log of activity.
  • Build the habit of surfacing bad news early, before it costs a venture real time.
• Build the AI Layer
  • Reach for an agent before you reach for a hire, as the default instinct, not the exception.
  • Build and continuously improve the AI layer that lets one operator run five to seven ventures at once.
  • Treat AI as the thing that replaces a team's workload — not a productivity add-on bolted onto a headcount plan.
• Build the Team, When It's Earned
  • Identify the specific roles each venture actually needs, rather than applying a generic team template.
  • Hold off building an execution function until the portfolio genuinely justifies it — not before.
  • When a team is earned, build it small and build it deliberately.
• Protect the Culture
  • Hold a high tolerance for fast failure — treat it as tuition, not a black mark.
  • Keep a radical external orientation: market signal over internal comfort.
  • Choose transparency over polish, even when — especially when — the news is bad.

Success Metrics

• First 30 days: full fluency in Vertica — what's shipped, what's stuck, what's at risk — with a weekly operating cadence installed and running.
• Days 31–90: at least one structural bottleneck resolved, not just documented, alongside a repeatable reporting format in active use.
• 6 months: two ventures launched on the system, with a draft operating playbook ready for the next one to reuse.
• 12 months: execution runs on a system, not on your constant presence. Ventures three through seven launch on that playbook, each faster than the last, and the CEO bases resourcing calls on your read without re-checking it.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in startup operations, venture building, general management, or a comparable operating role ideally spanning more than one company.
• Direct, hands-on experience taking at least one company from zero to launch — not supporting someone else's launch, owning it.
• Strong working knowledge of AI tools and agentic workflows, with a track record of using them to replace team-based work, not just to speed up your own.
• Experience designing or operating a structured process for de-risking new initiatives — stage-gates, funnel management, or a comparable system.
• Hands-on experience managing execution across multiple workstreams or business lines at once, without a large team underneath you.
• Experience reporting directly to a CEO or founder, with the judgment to flag risk early and independently.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to give a CEO or board an honest, concise read on portfolio or business health.
• Comfort operating as an independent contractor, with compensation banded to scope rather than a fixed salary ladder.

Highly Preferred

• Experience within venture studios, startup holding companies, private equity operating groups, or other multi-entity, multi-portfolio organizations.
• Experience building or scaling a B2B SaaS company, ideally in lead generation, martech, or an adjacent category.
• Experience implementing structured venture-building frameworks — stage-gate models, venture operating models, or similar.
• Experience with AI agent orchestration, automation platforms, or building internal AI-native tooling.
• Experience operating in or supporting Indonesia or the wider Southeast Asian startup ecosystem.
• Background as a founder (successful exit or otherwise) now seeking a portfolio-level operating role rather than solo founding again.

Core Competencies

• Judgment & Signal
  • Separates signal from noise inside genuine ambiguity — sees color, not just black-and-white.
  • Knows which venture to push and which to pause before the dashboard says so.
• Systems Discipline
  • Holds every venture to gate criteria without exception — strict adherence is the standard, not a suggestion.
  • Builds repeatable systems rather than solving the same problem twice.
• Execution Rhythm
  • Runs the operating spine — Define, Distill, Delegate, Deadline — across every venture at once.
  • Keeps that rhythm honest even under real pressure, across all ventures simultaneously.

What Great Looks Like

• Has built more than one company from zero, and can tell you exactly what changed each time.
• Treats a venture's problems as personally owned, not delegated upward.
• Defaults to an AI agent before a headcount request.
• Gives the CEO bad news before it becomes a crisis, every time.
• Can hold a system rigorously and still make the judgment call it can't.
• Builds only the team the portfolio has actually earned.

Candidate Snapshot

• Founder-minded operator with more than one zero-to-one under their belt.
• Fluent in AI as a working instrument, not a curiosity.
• Comfortable owning a portfolio with no board and no safety net above the CEO.
• Motivated by slope and scars over seniority and title.
• Based in or aligned to Indonesia working hours, remote.
• Remote, fully. No office. No commute. Just you, the machine, and wherever you do your best work.
• A contractor seat, not a cubicle. No ladder to climb, you're building the machine that makes ladders irrelevant.
• You're not inheriting a system. You're writing it, and every venture after Vertica runs on what you build.
• Core collaboration hours (9am–12pm PST) for continuity with the founding team.
• Paid in USD, Full compensation detail shared directly with shortlisted candidates.