Business Development Lead - AVELA - Equitable Enrollment

Avela is building the first common application for PK-12 education and just raised $6.5 million to grow. We're looking for our first sales, marketing, and biz dev leader who will be responsible for our entire Go To Market efforts.

As the first member of our Business Development team, you’ll help crystalize our product-market fit and design and execute our sales and marketing process. You’ll be responsible for all stages of the customer acquisition lifecycle, including lead generation, marketing campaigns, sales presentations/demos, and closing deals.

This is a senior leadership role and at least 6 years of full time experience is required, but 10+ is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Marketing and Demand Generation - As we get started, you’ll also double as our lead marketer and will be responsible for driving leads through both inbound and outbound marketing techniques, including social media, content generation (SEO, blog posts, etc), webinars, virtual events, direct emails, cold calling, and more.
• Product Marketing - You’ll partner with our subject matter experts to develop specific marketing collateral that both attracts inbound leads and provides customers and prospects with helpful information.
• Outbound Marketing and Sales Development - You’ll pick up the phone and call potential prospects directly, as well as sending personalized cold emails. We don’t want to spam or spray-and-pray, so you’ll need to understand our prospects to precisely target those who we can help the most.
• Solution Engineering and Business Development - You’re ultimately responsible for identifying the best solution to the prospect’s problems and setting them up with the right software and services from our team.
• Sales Presentations - You’ll design and deliver our sales presentations to prospects, in partnership with the founders, enrollment consultants, and other subject matter experts on the team.
• Contracting, Negotiation, and Closing - Ultimately, your goal is to grow our business by closing deals and driving sales revenue. You’ll have aggressive quotas / targets
• Operations, Customer Success, and More - As a growing startup, we need help across the board, from HR to finance to operations. Everyone pitches in to “take out the trash,” and nothing is “outside your job description.” You’ll no doubt help with customer success and support, as well as potentially project management and service delivery.
• Advise Product Teams - Our product and engineering teams will need your expertise as they design and build our product suite.

Qualifications

• Experience selling to schools, districts, CMOs, or other education organizations
• Demonstrated history of closing $1 million in new business each year.
• Sales team leadership experience with 5+ sales reps a plus
• Excellent communicator, including written and oral
• Capable of producing compelling sales slide presentations
• Capable of negotiating contracts and getting into the weeds to push a deal across the finish line
• Passion for education, equity, or social impact
• Entrepreneurial spirit and drive, extraordinary comfort with ambiguity, enjoyment wearing many hats
• Among the best at what you do with a growth mindset and desire to constantly improve
• Living in the US with at least four years of full time professional experience in the USA.

Compensation

$120,000 - $180,000 a year

Offer includes Significant Stock Options / Equity

Level: M2 - M6 (Senior Team Manager)

We give all candidates three package options, with different levels of cash compensation (salary) and stock options (equity). We try to pay competitive salaries and exceptionally strong equity packages, as we want everyone to share in the upside when Avela makes it big! 

Of course, we are an early stage, education startup, and so cash salaries won’t quite be comparable to larger or better funded organizations. But what we lack in cash, we make up for in upside, impact, and fun! We also hope our financial discipline gives you confidence in our long-term potential and incredibly low likelihood of layoffs, like many of our less disciplined counterparts

Company

Avela is a Nobel Prize-winning edtech startup building the first universal application for PK-12 education, daycare, and enrichment programs, promoting equity and access to education.

For students and families, this simplifies the process of finding and applying to educational programming. For schools and districts, this streamlines operations and helps increase enrollment (and hence, revenue).

We sell our application and enrollment platform directly to school districts, charter networks, other educational providers, cities, and states. We work with school districts and charter networks across the country, including in Oakland, Seattle, Hartford, Tulsa, New Orleans, Newark, and Jersey City. We also work with a range of nonprofits and NGOs, including Teach for America and the Inter-American Development Bank, as well as the US Military.

Our platform has four parts to cover each stage of the application journey, from exploring options to applying and final selection and admission:

Avela Explore - Mobile-optimized school finder and opportunity navigator

Avela Apply - Streamlined application management system and tracking

Avela Match - Research-based admission and student assignment lottery system.

We also offer a range of consulting services to help districts implement enrollment reforms and advance equity in educational programs.

Learn more at avela.org.

Team

Avela was founded by a renowned team of visionaries, including Nobel Laureate Joshua Angrist, Clark Medalist Parag Pathak, and social entrepreneur Greg Bybee. We have a passionate team of entrepreneurs, engineers, economists, and data scientists - get to know us at https://avela.org/team. 

Location

We are a flexible, fully remote company. We just ask that everyone work continental US hours to facilitate collaboration.

Benefits

Significant equity, passionate team, flexible work policies, unlimited vacation, and full health benefits. 

Learn more at avela.org/careers.

Work Authorization

Although we are strongly supportive of immigrants and individuals of all backgrounds, unfortunately, as a small startup, we are not in a position to sponsor visas and are only able to consider candidates who are authorized to work in the United States without employer sponsorship. We apologize for the inconvenience.

We Encourage You To Apply

Avela is a safe, inclusive workplace for people of all backgrounds and walks of life. We strongly encourage you to apply if you are from a marginalized or underrepresented group, even if you don't meet all of the job requirements. If you believe this is a role that you’ll be excited to work in every day, want to be a part of a culture like ours, and will be relentless about pushing boundaries to succeed, please apply.