Startup Partnerships - Y Combinator

United States Digital Space LLC; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

United States Digital Space LLC is seeking a Senior Partnerships Lead to oversee strategic accelerator partnerships, including Y Combinator, and to educate, attract and retain the most promising startups.

You’ll connect with founders and investors, shape programs, and drive GTM initiatives, working cross-functionally to expand the company's ecosystem and strengthen its role in early-stage funding and fintech infrastructure.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in the startup ecosystem with startup or investing experience.
• Experienced business or technical founder with a passion for helping other founders.
• Strong understanding of the startup ecosystem and founder empathy.
• Ability to build partnerships, especially within the YC community.
• A user-first mindset and drive to deliver exceptional experiences.
• Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally with internal and external stakeholders.
• Builder by nature with a track record of launching new initiatives.
• Strong verbal and written communications skills.
• Hunger to operate in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment.
• Humility and a proactive, “no task is too small” attitude.

Responsibilities

• Oversee our YC Combinator and other accelerator partnerships.
• Work across the business to ensure that every founder's experience is surprisingly delightful.
• Build out and oversee the execution of key programs.
• Spin up new initiatives that add continuous value to the YC ecosystem.
• Serve as a point of escalation for partners and top startups to grow the company’s brand within the YC ecosystem.
• Maintain a product feedback loop to internal teams to ensure that we continue to build for the highest potential businesses.
• Work cross-functionally with internal stakeholders to advance strategic company initiatives for startup founders.
• Collate startup ecosystem insights and prepare weekly/ quarterly updates detailing business progress, market trends, and product feedback from startup engagements.
• Represent the company in the startup ecosystem and take up speaking opportunities at key startup events.
• Leverage your data prowess (SQL, etc) to build tools that serve founders and demonstrate impact.
• Cultivate deep, trust-based partnerships with venture capitalists.

Skills

Startup ecosystem

Partnerships

Y Combinator

SQL

Public speaking

Cross-functional collaboration

Data analysis

Channel partnerships

Founders empathy

Tools

SQL

Job description

Who we areAbout the company

the company is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies - from the world’s largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups - use the company to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet, and we have a staggering amount of work ahead. That means you have an unprecedented opportunity to put the global economy within everyone's reach while doing the most important work of your career.

About the team

We believe startups are the future. We work with many of the newest and most innovative companies to help them grow, and we need your help. We're looking for someone who knows their way around the early-stage startup ecosystem to represent the company and share what we're working on with a broad base of startups and accelerator partners. Our primary goal is to help early-stage founders succeed, and that comes in a variety of forms - mentorship, helping them set up their financial stack, connecting them with investors and mentors, being their internal advocate, and much more.

What you’ll do

In this role you will oversee a portfolio of strategic early-stage accelerator partnerships, including Y Combinator, as we work to educate, attract and retain the most promising startups. You’re an energetic and organized self-starter; you understand the product well and can cultivate trusted partnerships with the right players in the ecosystem. You’re also able to succinctly communicate the company's mission and benefits to investors and startups. You will be on the front lines for evangelizing our product to prospective users and a key driver of our success with startups. You connect dots, constantly soliciting input from users and using that to improve product and GTM strategy. If you’re excited to spend your days interfacing with startup founders and early-stage investors, and find energy in tirelessly helping early-stage founders as they look to start and scale, then we’d love to talk.

Responsibilities

• Oversee our YC Combinator and other accelerator partnerships

• Work across the business to ensure that every founder's experience of the company is surprisingly delightful

• Build out and oversee the execution of key programs

• Spin up new initiatives that add continuous value to the Y Combinator ecosystem

• Serve as a point of escalation for partners and top startups to grow the company’s brand within the Y Combinator ecosystem

• Maintain a product feedback loop to internal teams to ensure that we continue to build for the highest potential businesses

• Work cross functionally with key internal stakeholders to advance strategic the company initiatives for startup founders

• Collate startup ecosystem insights and prepare weekly / quarterly updates detailing business progress, market trends, and product feedback gathered from startup engagement

• Represent the company in the startup ecosystem and take up speaking opportunities at key startup events that bolster the company as the best platform for founders to start and scale

• Leverage your data prowess (SQL, etc) to build out tools that enable us to better serve founders and demonstrate impact

• Interest and demonstrated ability to cultivate deep, trust-based partnerships with some of the most consequential venture capitalists

Who you are

We're looking for someone who meets the minimum requirements to be considered for the role. If you meet these requirements, you are encouraged to apply. The preferred qualifications are a bonus, not a requirement.

Minimum requirements

• 7+ years of experience in the startup ecosystem with startup or investing experience.

• Experienced business or technical founder with a passion for helping other founders.

• Strong understanding of the startup ecosystem, founder empathy, and ability to build strong partnerships, particularly within the Y Combinator community

• A user-first mindset, anything less than perfect is unacceptable to you.

• Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally with internal and external stakeholders to get new programming off the ground.

• You’re a builder by nature and are excited to launch new initiatives within the company that extend surprisingly delightful experiences to best in class founders.

• Strong verbal and written communications skills.

• Hunger and motivation to operate (and thrive) in a highly ambiguous and fast-paced environment.

• Humility, and who takes initiative with a “no task is too small” and “I’ll get it done” attitude.

Preferred qualifications

• Well-networked individual who is active in the early stage venture capital and startup ecosystem

• Alumni of Y Combinator

• Ability to understand a technical buyer and key moments in their life-cycle where financial infrastructure decisions are made.

• Adept public speaker, presenter and moderator.

• Sales experience, understands channel partnerships and the value this channel brings to a GTM org.

• Strong Data skills - conversant in SQL or Python - and willingness to build tools serve our users and measure business impact.