Founding Account Executive

Overview

You sell an AI content generation platform to life sciences and biopharma marketing teams. The product helps them create compliant marketing content faster - think regulatory-approved email campaigns, product detail aids, and brand materials. You're one of three founding AEs building the sales motion from the ground up, which means you'll be doing everything from cold outreach to contract negotiation while the playbook is still being written.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Seed/early Series A (17 employees, aggressive hiring)

Size: 17 employees

Growth: Hiring 17 roles across GTM, product, and ops - suggests recent funding or early customer validation

Market Position: Category creator in AI-powered pharma marketing content - niche play in a highly regulated space

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 85% Outbound - You're building lists of biopharma marketing directors, emailing, calling, LinkedIn messaging. No established inbound engine yet.
• 10% Referrals - Early customers referring peers, but not systematic
• 5% Inbound - Minimal website traffic, maybe some LinkedIn post engagement

SDR/AE Structure: 4 Commercial Engagement Leads (likely SDR/BDR function) supporting 3 AEs - you'll get some meetings set, but expect to self-source 60%+ of your pipeline early on

SE Support: No dedicated SEs mentioned - you're doing your own demos and likely relying on Forward Deployed Engineers for technical deep dives

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Generic AI writing tools (Jasper, Copy.ai), traditional pharma agency/copywriter model, internal content teams, possible pharma-specific competitors not publicly known

How They Differentiate: Pharma-specific compliance built in (huge pain point), faster than agencies, cheaper than headcount, maintains brand standards

Common Objections: "Our agency handles this", "Compliance won't approve AI-generated content", "We need more control over messaging", "Budget allocated elsewhere", "IT security concerns with AI tools"

Win Themes: Speed to market for campaigns, cost savings vs agencies, compliance confidence, scalability during peak launch periods

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Prospecting (40%) | Active Deals (30%) | Product Feedback/Internal (30%)

Key Activities

• Outbound prospecting: Build lists of pharma marketing leaders (Directors, VPs of Marketing at mid-size biopharma), send 30-50 personalized emails daily, make 20-30 calls. Most don't respond. You're trying to book 8-12 first calls per month.
• Discovery and demos: Run 45-60 minute demos showing how the platform generates compliant content. You'll spend time understanding their brand guidelines, regulatory review process, and current content workflow. Expect a lot of "we need to loop in compliance" and "medical/legal/regulatory needs to review."
• Multi-stakeholder navigation: Chase down medical directors, regulatory affairs, IT security, procurement. Deals involve 5-8 people minimum. Lots of internal alignment meetings on their side that you're not invited to.
• Product feedback loop: You're a founding AE, so you're in daily Slack with product team reporting what prospects ask for, what demos well, what doesn't. You'll influence roadmap but also sell vaporware sometimes.
• Building playbook: Document what messaging works, which titles to target, how to handle objections. Write email templates, create demo flows, test different outreach angles.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Pharma buying cycles are brutal - 6-9 months is normal, and deals slip quarters constantly because "compliance is still reviewing" or "waiting on legal sign-off"
• You're selling AI to a risk-averse industry that moves slowly and has gotten burned by tech vendors before
• Multiple stakeholders all have veto power - marketing loves it, but then regulatory says no or IT blocks it over data security
• The playbook doesn't exist yet - you're figuring out ICP, messaging, and process while trying to hit quota
• At 17 people, there's no sales ops, no established comp plan refinement, no training program - you're building it
• Long gaps between wins - you might close 1 deal in Q1, 0 in Q2, 3 in Q3 based on when pilots convert

What Success Looks Like

• Close 4-6 new logos in year one ($400K-600K in bookings)
• Build a pipeline worth 4-5x your quota within 6 months
• Document a repeatable sales process that the next 10 AEs can follow
• Get 2-3 reference customers who will take calls for prospects

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• VP/Director of Marketing at mid-size biopharma (20-500 person companies)
• Brand Marketing Leads for specific drug portfolios
• Head of Commercial Strategy

What They Care About:

• Speed: Can they get campaign content out in weeks vs months with agencies?
• Compliance confidence: Will regulatory approve AI-generated content?
• Cost: Agencies charge $50K+ per campaign - can this replace that spend?
• Quality control: Does output match their brand voice and scientific accuracy?
• Integration: Does this fit their existing tech stack (Veeva, CRM, etc.)?

Requirements

• 2-4 years full-cycle AE experience, ideally selling B2B SaaS
• Comfort with ambiguity - no established playbook, you're writing it
• Experience with complex, multi-stakeholder enterprise deals (5+ people in buying committee)
• Ability to learn a technical product and explain AI capabilities to non-technical buyers
• Pharma/healthcare/life sciences experience helpful but not required - you'll learn the industry
• Self-starter mentality - no one is going to tell you what to do daily
• Willingness to be in NYC office (early-stage company likely wants in-person collaboration)
• Resilience to handle long sales cycles, deal slippage, and hearing "no" a lot while the category is being created