[Hiring] Founding BDR, AI Packaging SaaS @Lavendo

Role Description

This is a founding sales hire — the Founding BDR for the company. You will be the first dedicated outbound seller, working directly with the founder. Your job is to fill the top of the funnel — book qualified meetings with brand, packaging, and supply chain decision-makers so the founder can run discovery and close.

• Run high-volume outbound across phone, email, and LinkedIn into a curated list of CPG brands, packaging companies, and adjacent manufacturers.
• Book qualified discovery meetings for the founder (target: minimum 2 meetings/week after a 2-week onboarding ramp).
• Own the CRM (HubSpot): clean pipeline, sequence cadences, log every call, keep data tight.
• Research target accounts and identify the right buyer — Creative Director, Packaging Engineer, Formulator, Procurement, Supply Chain, or Account Executive — depending on company.
• Iterate weekly on messaging with the founder: what objections came up, what hooks worked, what stories resonate.
• When given pre-built target lists, work them ruthlessly. When given a blank ICP, source your own.
• Bring market signal back to the founder: what buyers care about, what they push back on, what features they ask about.

Qualifications

• 1–3+ years of B2B SaaS outbound sales experience (SDR / BDR / Founding BDR).
• Demonstrated track record of cold-outbound success — you can talk in numbers about dials/day, meetings/week, conversion rates.
• Excellent spoken English, confident on a cold call, comfortable with US business buyers (East Coast and Central time zones).
• Experience selling into non-tech, traditional industries — manufacturing, packaging, supply chain, construction, CPG, or similar "blue-collar" buyers.
• You can pitch an early-stage product without flinching — you know how to handle "you're too early" and "come back when you have more customers."
• Fluency in modern outbound tools: HubSpot (or Salesforce), Apollo / ZoomInfo, LinkedIn Sales Nav, a sequencer (Outreach / Salesloft / Lemlist).
• Willing and able to work US business hours that overlap with the East Coast (roughly 6am–2pm PT / 9am–5pm ET).

Requirements

• Prior founding sales hire at a YC or seed-stage startup.
• Sold into Procurement, Packaging, or Creative/Brand decision-makers specifically.
• Closed your own deals (not just SDR meeting-booking).
• Experience running outbound from a founder's LinkedIn account.
• Familiarity with CPG, beauty, or packaging supply chain terminology.

Benefits

• Founding-team seat at a revenue-generating, pre-fundraise AI SaaS startup in San Francisco.
• Direct mentorship from a founder who is hands-on with sales and will personally onboard you.
• Founder closes deals — you'll watch and learn the full motion, not just book and hand off.
• Clear path: BDR → Account Executive after the upcoming fundraise.
• Meaningful early equity for the right person who performs and stays through the round.
• Build the playbook from scratch — your messaging, your sequences, your wins.
• Strong technical co-founder — when a prospect asks for a feature, you can credibly say "we'll build it."
• Open roadmap, real customer voice — what you hear on calls actually shapes the product.
• Remote, flexible — work from anywhere with strong US East Coast time-zone overlap.
• Contractor engagement via Deel — clean, compliant, simple monthly payments.

Compensation

• Base $1,500–$3,000 USD/month, depending on experience, skills, and location, benchmarked against your local market and aligned with your background.
• Strong performance-based upside: clear path to a higher comp and equity after the fundraise, with specifics agreed at the final stage.

Interview Process

• Recruiter screen (30 min).
• Founder interview (45–60 min): product walkthrough, mock cold-call / outreach work sample, mutual fit.
• Reference + background check, offer.