# Ex Founder

**Company:** [Zania](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/zania)
**Location:** Palo Alto, CA
**Role:** Business Operations
**Skills:** B2B SaaS, enterprise saas, Go-to-Market Strategy, venture capital, Financial Modeling, investor relations
**Posted:** 2026-07-30

> Ex-founder to serve as founder proxy and co-pilot to the leadership team at fast-growing AI GRC startup Zania. Drive 0-to-1 strategic initiatives, accelerate growth experiments, manage investor relations, and operate with extreme ownership across revenue, operations, and product.

## Job Description

## What You’ll Do
- Drive 0-to-1 Strategic Initiatives: Parachute into the most critical areas of the business—whether that is standing up a new revenue channel, fixing an operational bottleneck, or launching a new product initiative—and build it from the ground up.
- Accelerate Growth: Act as a high-agency growth engine. You will identify untapped GTM motions, build strategic partnerships, and execute experiments with relentless speed.
- Manage Investor Relations: Work directly alongside the CEO on fundraising strategy, board deck creation, investor updates, and capital allocation planning.
- Act as a Founder Proxy: Operate with the authority, context, and extreme ownership of the founding team to unblock teams and accelerate decision-making across the company.
- Move Fast with High Autonomy: Low friction, high output. You will concept, execute, and iterate on business strategies without waiting for approval chains.

## What We Care About
- Founder DNA: You have been in the driver's seat. You know what it takes to survive, pivot, and scale in highly ambiguous environments.
- Extreme Agency: You don't wait for permission or perfectly outlined scopes. You find the biggest fire or the biggest opportunity and you own it.
- Strategic & Tactical Range: You can debate high-level capital strategy with board members at 9:00 AM and manually scrape a lead list or format a customer proposal at 10:00 AM.
- Execution Speed: You have a ruthless ability to prioritize and an obsession with momentum.
- Commercial Taste: You know the difference between a vanity metric and a lever that actually moves the needle for enterprise revenue.

## Minimum Qualifications
- Experience as a Founder, Co-Founder, or early executive at a venture-backed or bootstrapped startup
- Track record of scaling revenue, operations, or product initiatives from zero to tangible traction
- Deep understanding of B2B/Enterprise SaaS growth dynamics and venture capital operations
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills—you must be able to credibly interact with CISOs, Fortune 500 executives, and Tier 1 investors
- Financial and analytical fluency to model growth scenarios, build forecasts, and structure strategic bets

## How to Apply
Skip the traditional resume. Send us a one-page memo answering one of the following prompts:
- The Autopsy: What was the biggest failure or hardest lesson from your last startup, and how has it changed the way you operate?
- The Growth Plan: Outline a highly unconventional, zero-budget GTM experiment you would run in your first 30 days at Zania to capture the attention of enterprise CISOs.

## Compensation & Benefits
- Flexible PTO policy
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- Meals and snacks in the office
- Relocation support

## Similar roles

- [Strategy & Operations, Product Partnerships](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/85e0a5ae-3375-4c33-9712-0dfab16c595a) - Anthropic - San Francisco, CA - $205k – $240k/yr
- [Administrative Business Partner](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/28525044-8cbb-4cda-b0f9-83b443294bc2) - Stripe - Remote
- [Business Systems Analyst, Quoting System](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/12fe81ba-caa5-455e-b243-64b34d49d9bd) - CommandLink - Remote - $80k – $120k/yr
- [Cruise Operations Manager](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/6d259a85-e60b-4382-8530-dcca403e70f1) - Fora - New York, NY - $85k – $115k/yr
- [AutoFile Specialist, Tax](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/d8e70f44-b848-42e1-a6d5-0f8e28780f67) - Stripe - Remote

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/9a9c6d4b-31fd-40e4-a5d1-3b288e6be32c
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/9a9c6d4b-31fd-40e4-a5d1-3b288e6be32c