Founding Operator - Shorthand Studios, Paywall

The Publish Press; United States; On-site; USD 60,000 - 75,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance-based bonuses

Direct relationship with leadership

Opportunity for growth within the company

Job summary

The Publish Press LLC is looking for a dynamic individual to enhance client engagement within our Paywall division. In this role, you will not only manage multiple client strategies but also optimize operational systems that scale our services effectively.

This opportunity involves direct client interaction and data-driven decision making to improve strategies related to memberships and monetization. Successful candidates will have a strong background in project management and will be familiar with automation tools, focusing on growth.

Qualifications

• Experience managing client engagements and strategies.
• Proven ability to launch initiatives that convert users.
• Familiarity with workflow systems and automation.

Responsibilities

• Manage multiple client engagements while optimizing processes.
• Improve VA output quality and efficiency based on feedback.
• Analyze data from multiple platforms to drive strategic decisions.
• Facilitate client communications ensuring clarity and effectiveness.

Skills

Client engagement strategy

Project management

Data analysis

Written communication

Automation tools

Tools

ClickUp

Substack

Patreon

Job description

Reports to: Fadi Saleh (Head of Paywall)

Remote · Contract-to-hire · $60-75K + performance upside

Shorthand Studios is a creator‑first agency powering growth for creators and brands through strategy, content, and data‑driven social storytelling. This is where creativity meets analytics. We have partnered with 500+ creators to date and provide end‑to‑end services across content distribution, publishing operations, channel management, post‑production, metadata optimization, monetization, affiliate revenue, and custom paywall strategy and execution.

We’re a division of Underscore Talent, the next‑generation talent management firm representing top global creators across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, Snapchat, gaming, and podcasting. Underscore Talent is part of TheSoul Group, the digital studio behind 5‑Minute Crafts and one of the largest social publishers in the world.

The Paywall division designs, launches, and grows product and membership businesses for creators on Substack, Patreon, Mighty Networks, Kit, and similar platforms. We operate end‑to‑end: paywall and content strategy, execution, publishing, customer support, marketing assets, paid ads, and retention. Our roster includes established top creators across wellness, finance, education, and culinary verticals, with new engagements added regularly.

We don’t plan to scale with headcount. We scale with systems, a playbook of 126 growth levers. SOPs that AI agents and VAs execute through a ClickUp task queue, and audit loops that help us prioritize growth strategy for each client.

Right now I’m the only person who can build and improve that machine. The job is to become the second.

What you’ll actually do

• Run point on 3-5 client engagements with me: strategy calls as a second brain, follow‑ups owned, playbook plays shipped, loops closed between calls
• Own VA output: assign through ClickUp, QA against the rubric, and when the same error shows up twice, fix the SOP so it can’t happen a third time
• Build the machine with me: the playbook, the audit cadence, ClickUp workflows, AI agents
• Drive the strategy loop: pull data from Substack, Patreon, Mighty, Kit, and Meta dashboards, find the conversion lever, draft the rec, ship the change
• Own the messy in‑between: the unscoped problems that don’t fit a process yet. You turn them into one
• Talk to clients directly: calls, recaps, email and text updates, getting them unstuck

You might be

• The person who ran your campus newsletter or channel like a business and refuses to accept that media means being broke
• A consulting or banking analyst, 14 months in, building automations at 11pm and wondering why the day job can’t feel like that
• An AI tinkerer who’s done selling one‑off n8n builds and wants one compounding machine with real revenue behind it
• A creator’s right hand — channel manager, producer — who hit the assistant ceiling and wants to run ten businesses instead of one

The bar

• You’ve launched something publicly. A newsletter, a Patreon, a course, a community, an ecom brand. You’ve turned cold humans into subscribers, customers, or members. You know what conversion actually feels like
• AI native. Claude, agents, and automations are already your daily tools, and you’ve learned to be the abstraction layer above them
• Systems brain. You see workflows where other people see tasks
• Sharp written communication. You can email a creator with a real audience, confidently
• Allergic to bureaucracy. Ship the v1, then iterate
• Comfortable in a mess. We’re early and moving fast. If that’s exciting instead of terrifying, keep reading

Bonus, not required: ClickUp/Notion/Airtable at real depth, small ad budgets run, code‑light (Python scripts, serious prompt engineering), and actual opinions about the creator economy.

What you get

• Comp: $60‑75K + performance upside tied to the machine you build
• Direct partnership with me on real client strategy, from day one
• The full stack of creator‑owned business building, from the inside
• A real path to Operations Manager or Paywall Growth Strategist inside 12–24 months if you’re the person