Founder’s Associate / Entrepreneur in Residence

Polara; United States; Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Direct mentorship from founders

Ownership from day one

Competitive pay with equity

Path to leadership

Flexible working

Job summary

Polara, a startup tackling brand protection with smart technology and trademark expertise, is seeking a proactive early-team member to help build the company from day one. You’ll influence core decisions, shape GTM, and recruit and onboard initial talent across regions.

You’ll work directly with founders, receive mentorship, and gain real ownership from day one. Expect competitive pay plus meaningful equity, and a clear path to leadership as the company grows.

Qualifications

• 2–5 years of experience in a startup, scale-up, VC, consulting or similar fast-paced environment.
• Strong bias for action: you get things done without waiting for perfect information.
• Structured thinking and the ability to switch between strategy and execution in the same hour.
• Excellent communication skills, and you enjoy talking to customers, candidates and partners.
• Fluency in English.
• The ambition to found or lead a company yourself one day.

Responsibilities

• Work on high-priority initiatives across company setup, GTM strategy, hiring, and partnerships.
• Help shape positioning, pricing, channels and win initial customers.
• Onboard early team members, including trademark professionals across Europe.
• Build relationships with partners, advisors and service providers.
• Turn chaos into scalable processes and operational routines.
• Contribute to investor materials and customer discussions.

Skills

Bias for action

Structured thinking

Communication skills

English fluency

Entrepreneurial ambition

Job description

About us

We're a team of serial entrepreneurs who have built and scaled companies before, and we're starting again. Our next venture tackles a problem every founder knows: protecting your brand is slow, expensive and confusing. We combine smart technology with real trademark expertise to make it simple. We're at the very beginning, and that's exactly why we're looking for you: someone who wants to build a company from day one, side by side with founders who've done it before.

What you'll do

As our right hand, you'll work on whatever matters most right now. In the first months, that includes:

• Setting up the company: incorporation, structure, banking, legal and administrative set-up across countries.
• Go-to-market: shaping positioning and pricing, testing channels, and winning our first customers.
• Hiring: finding, approaching and onboarding our first team members, including trademark professionals across Europe.
• Partnerships: building relationships with partners, advisors and service providers.
• Operations: turning chaos into processes, and processes into something that scales.
• Anything else that moves the company forward, from investor materials to customer calls.

What you bring

• 2-5 years of experience in a startup, scale-up, VC, consulting or a similar fast-paced environment
• A strong bias for action: you get things done without waiting for perfect information
• Structured thinking and the ability to switch between strategy and execution in the same hour
• Excellent communication skills, and you enjoy talking to customers, candidates and partners
• Fluency in English.
• The ambition to found or lead a company yourself one day

What we offer

• Direct mentorship from serial founders: you'll be in every important conversation
• Real ownership from day one, with responsibility that grows as fast as you do
• Competitive pay plus a meaningful equity package
• A clear path to a leadership role as the company grows
• Flexible working and a small team with short decision paths