Founding Sales Development Representative

Fernstone (YC F25); New York (NY); On-site; USD 70,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Founding role

In-person NYC office

Competitive compensation

Job summary

Fernstone, a YC-backed insurtech in New York City, is hiring a founding SDR to drive demand generation across growth and sales. You will own outbound prospecting, qualify inbound interest, and book meetings to accelerate our early pipeline.

We offer competitive compensation and meaningful equity. This is a founding role with scope, upside, and a path to build scalable sales processes while collaborating with a tight-knit team.

Qualifications

• 0–2+ years of experience on a team with outcome ownership (sales, startup, or consulting).
• Demonstrated achievement in competitive environments (academic, athletic, or professional).
• Interest in ownership, ambiguity, and rapid execution.

Responsibilities

• Outbound (40%): own outbound channel and book meetings.
• Inbound (40%): qualify pipeline and close opportunities.
• Growth (10–20%): build scalable processes, enrich leads, and stand up new verticals.

Skills

Outbound sales

Inbound sales

Lead qualification

Pipeline management

Team player

Job description

About Fernstone

Fernstone is building a new kind of insurance company: we combine AI with expert advisors to place insurance faster and at better terms. Insurance is a $1T category that still runs on pen and paper. We believe AI will fundamentally reshape how insurance is bought, sold, and serviced.

We’ve raised $3M from YCombinator and other notable investors.

Fernstone was founded by James (BCG, Traba, UChicago) and Bryant (Google, SentiLink, Vanderbilt). We work in-person in our NYC office.

Since the start of the year we’ve grown from 0 to 500+ customers — we’ve built a compelling product with an average sales cycle of 15 days, and now we are scaling it up to reach thousands more.

As Founding SDR and our first dedicated sales hire, you will own demand generation across growth and sales:

• Outbound (40%): create and own our outbound channel – reach prospects through phone calls, convert interest into booked meetings
• Inbound (40%): meet with a healthy pipeline of interested customers, qualify them, close them
• Growth (10-20%): transmit sales execution work into scalable systems — generate and enrich leads, create sequences, and stand up new verticals to expand top of funnel

You Are

• Competitive
• Ambitious
• Gritty
• Intelligent
• A team player

We’ll Be Most Excited If You

• Have 0 – 2+ years of experience working on a team that requires outcome ownership (sales, high-growth startup, consulting/finance)
• Have accomplished impressive things in a competitive environment — whether professional, academic, athletic, or otherwise
• Have built something before and are excited about ownership, ambiguity, and fast execution

We provide competitive compensation and substantial equity. This is a founding role, and that is reflected in scope, compensation, and upside.