Founding Business Operations

Overview

You're the first dedicated business operations person at AirOps, a 123-person AI content platform selling to marketing and SEO teams. You'll work directly with the finance/ops lead and founders on both strategic decisions (pricing models, market positioning, GTM strategy) and operational execution (revenue forecasting, pipeline metrics, cross-functional process building). This isn't a specialized rev ops or finance ops role—it's both, plus whatever the business needs.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Unknown funding stage (123 employees suggests Series A/B)

Size: 123 employees

Growth: Hiring first biz ops person suggests scaling phase, likely ramping GTM after product-market fit

Market Position: Playing in crowded AI content/SEO space—competing with established SEO platforms and newer AI writing tools. Positioning around "human-in-the-loop" content that drives performance.

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Strategic Projects (40%) | Revenue/Pipeline Analytics (30%) | Process/Systems (20%) | Ad-hoc Firefighting (10%)

Key Activities

• Revenue & Pipeline Analytics: Build and maintain forecast models, analyze conversion metrics across the funnel, identify where deals are stalling or dropping off, present business reviews to leadership
• Strategic Projects: Research pricing/packaging changes, analyze market opportunities, model out new GTM motions, build financial projections for different growth scenarios
• Cross-functional Operations: Design processes that don't exist yet (lead routing, territory planning, comp plan administration), coordinate between sales/marketing/product on GTM initiatives
• Systems & Tools: You might be the Salesforce/HubSpot admin by default, build dashboards, integrate tools, clean up data quality issues when no one else will
• Board/Investor Prep: Pull together metrics decks, answer diligence questions, prepare materials for fundraising or board meetings

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• You're building infrastructure while the plane is flying—priorities shift weekly based on what the business needs, so your carefully planned project gets shelved for an urgent pricing analysis
• No team means no backup—if you don't do it, it doesn't get done. The scope is intentionally vague because they need someone who can figure out what needs doing
• You'll spend time on unglamorous work: cleaning CRM data, chasing down salespeople for forecast updates, untangling Excel models someone else built
• You're in the middle of every cross-functional debate (sales wants this, finance wants that, product has a different view) without authority to make final calls
• First biz ops hire means you're setting precedents—the systems and processes you build will define how this function operates as they scale
• Limited research available on funding, competitors, and market position means you'll be figuring out competitive dynamics and positioning in real-time

What Success Looks Like

• Leadership trusts your analysis enough to make big decisions based on your work (pricing changes, territory redesign, new market entry)
• Revenue forecasts you build are within 10-15% accuracy, and sales leadership actually uses them for planning
• Processes you design (lead routing, pipeline reviews, comp plans) run smoothly without constant firefighting
• You've hired and trained your first teammate, which means the function is scaling beyond just you
• You go from spending 60% of time on reactive requests to 60% on proactive strategic work

Who You're Supporting

Internal Stakeholders:

• Finance/Ops Lead (Aayush) - your direct manager
• Sales leadership - you're their analytics and ops partner
• CEO/Founders - you support strategic decisions and board materials
• Marketing - you help measure funnel performance and CAC payback

What They Care About:

• Finance wants: accurate forecasts, clean data, efficient processes that scale
• Sales wants: territories that make sense, comp plans that motivate, fewer administrative headaches
• Founders want: strategic insights that inform big decisions, confidence in the numbers they're presenting to investors

Requirements

• 3-5 years in biz ops, rev ops, strategy consulting, or investment banking—you've built financial models and done analytical work before
• High tolerance for ambiguity—you're comfortable defining your own projects when given a vague mandate like "figure out our pricing strategy"
• Strong in Excel/Sheets and comfortable learning new tools (Salesforce, BI tools, whatever the stack is)
• You can talk to salespeople and engineers equally well—translate between commercial and technical teams
• Scrappy execution mindset—you don't wait for perfect data or consensus, you ship version 1 and iterate
• Genuinely curious about how businesses work—you want to understand the full P&L, not just your corner of it