Founding Account Executive (AE) — Minoa (San Francisco)

San Francisco | OTE $200-270K (base + variable) + 0.3-1.0% equity

About Minoa

The question every buyer asks before signing a deal isn't "what does this cost?" It's "what is this actually worth to us, and can you prove it?"

There's no infrastructure for this yet. It's done by consultants charging $500/hr, by sales teams guessing in spreadsheets, or it doesn't get done at all. Minoa is building the intelligence layer for the outcome economy. We deploy Value Agents that help organizations uncover their unique value, build rigorous business cases in minutes, and measure ROI across the full customer lifecycle, creating the AI platform for value intelligence.

We work with some of the best companies in and outside of Silicon Valley, like Snowflake (3,000+ reps on the platform), Ironclad, Vanta, Benchling, Cognite, and Pendo. Zero churn. Team of 6. We're not optimizing an existing category. We're building a new one.

Why this role exists

Every deal Minoa has closed to date was closed by the CEO. That worked to get us to dozens of enterprise customers. It won't work to get us to 100. This is our first dedicated sales hire, the person who takes the mid-market sales motion from "founder-led" to repeatable. It is the most important GTM hire we're making right now.

The CEO will continue leading larger strategic deals and co-selling on enterprise accounts. You own the mid-market motion independently: sourcing pipeline, running full-cycle deals, closing, and partnering with our Implementation Lead on expansion.

What you'll do

Build your own pipeline. There is no SDR team. Some deals will come in through referrals, content, and customers presenting Minoa business cases to their own prospects. That's not enough to hit your number. You need to build a repeatable outbound motion targeting our ICP: Series C-E SaaS companies with emerging or scaling value engineering functions. You'll prospect, network, run events, work creative channel plays, and generate your own meetings. If you're someone who needs leads handed to you, this isn't the role.

Run full-cycle mid-market deals. You own the sales cycle from first meeting through signed contract. That means running discovery that uncovers real pain, multi-threading across buying committees of 5-10 stakeholders, positioning Minoa with economic buyers (typically the CRO), navigating procurement, and closing. Our buyers are Heads of Value Engineering, VPs of Sales, and CROs at companies like the ones we already serve. They are sophisticated, they know what good selling looks like, and they will immediately sense whether you've done this work yourself or are just performing it.

Partner on expansion. You don't disappear after close. You hand off to our Implementation Lead for onboarding but stay involved in the account for upsell and expansion conversations. You're incentivized on expansion revenue and should be proactively identifying new use cases and growth opportunities within your accounts.

Co-build the playbook. You are not executing a sales playbook. You are building it. You partner with the CEO to codify what works: which messaging resonates, which prospecting channels convert, which objections come up, what the ideal deal progression looks like. Every deal you run should produce insights that make the next one faster and more predictable. The playbook you build is what makes it possible to hire AE #2 and #3 behind you.

What we're looking for

Pipeline generation is non-negotiable. You have a track record of building pipeline in environments where nothing existed before. You've done cold outbound, worked events, leveraged your network, and generated your own meetings. You don't wait for leads; you create them. If your best deals came from SDR-sourced pipeline at a company with a mature demand gen engine, this role will feel like a different sport.

Full-cycle closing across complex buying committees. You've closed mid-market deals where multiple people needed to say yes. You know how to navigate from a champion to an economic buyer, how to handle procurement, and how to get deals unstuck when they stall. You can walk us through a specific deal with named roles and explain exactly how you moved it through the buying committee.

Entrepreneurial drive. This is a founding sales role at a 7-person company. There is no sales manager, no playbook, no enablement team, no sales ops. You need to be energized by that, not anxious about it. The best fit is someone who has been a founding or very early sales hire before, or who has founded/co-founded a company with GTM responsibilities. You see a 7-person company with Snowflake as a customer and zero churn as the opportunity of a career, not a risk.

Value selling fluency. Minoa sells value selling software to the people who live and breathe value selling every day. You don't need to have been a value engineer, but you need to have built business cases, presented ROI analyses to skeptical executives, and used quantified value to win deals in your own career. Your buyers will know in the first five minutes whether you've actually done the work.

AI and product fluency. Minoa is an AI-forward agentic platform, not traditional B2B SaaS. You need to credibly demo the product, answer technical questions about AI capabilities, and position Minoa's technology differentiation. You don't need to be an engineer, but you should be someone who uses AI tools daily, is genuinely curious about how the technology works, and can speak about it with confidence and nuance.

Nice to haves

Experience selling to sales and revenue leaders specifically (VPs of Sales, CROs, Heads of Value Engineering). Prior roles in the value selling or sales enablement ecosystem. Experience at a company that went through the founder-to-first-AE transition. Content creation ability; the best early-stage sellers also build pipeline through LinkedIn, thought leadership, and events.

What we offer

Compensation. OTE of $200-270K (base + variable). Meaningful equity (0.3-1.0%) reflecting the founding nature of this role.

Opportunity. Direct partnership with the CEO on GTM strategy. Build Minoa's entire sales motion from the ground up.

Travel. Meet customers across the US and Europe. This is a role where you're on the road, not behind a screen.

Why this role is different. Most AE roles come with a pipeline to work, a manager to report to, and a playbook to follow. This one doesn't. What it comes with is a product that enterprise customers love (zero churn), logos that open doors (Snowflake, Ironclad, Vanta), and a market that's early enough that the right seller can define how Minoa is positioned for the next decade.

Interview process

1. Phone screen with one co-founder (~30 min)
2. Deep-dive with both co-founders + meet the team (~60 min)
3. On-site working session in San Francisco (1 day) - includes a prospecting exercise, mock discovery call, deal strategy session, and product walkthrough etc.
4. Reference checks
5. Offer

How to apply

Send a note to [email protected]