Discover
The Opportunity
Highline Beta builds and funds ventures in collaboration with global corporate enterprises across a variety of industries. In some cases we incubate new startups from the outside and in others we support internal corporate innovation engagements. For example, we've helped RBC Ventures launch 10+ new ventures in market across multiple verticals. This has involved doing early research and validation work into opportunities, mockups and early prototyping, roadmap support and strategic coaching.
As a Venture Operations Director you'll be responsible for day-to-day management and coaching of 2 internal venture teams of one of our corporate CPG clients - drawing on your own experience as a product builder to help coach them along their journey. This will be, at minimum, a 12-month engagement where you are dedicated to working with these client teams to help them build their businesses day-in and day-out To do this, you'll have the support of a cross-functional Highline Beta team of researchers, facilitators, product designers and developers. Our team will roll up their sleeves and collaborate directly with the client to help them successfully find product-market fit while at the same time coaching them on product and new venture development best practices.
What you'll do
Responsibilities
Account & Delivery Role:
The account & delivery team at Highline Beta are customer-obsessed doers who are driven by outcomes vs outputs. We're looking for someone who's as comfortable leading a coaching meeting with corporate clients as they are being in the trenches working on and building a business. As the Venture Operations Director you will be responsible for:
Client Coaching: 50% of time
- Work directly with corporate client teams coaching them on the innovation and venture validation process - this can include coaching on any number of topics including research, design, product management, business modeling, and beyond
- Deeply understand the client's business challenges, and provide coaching on how to address them
- Help the client teams size and prioritize potential opportunities, coaching them on what to chase and why
- Recommend processes, frameworks, and methods for validating and developing new businesses
- Facilitate multi-stakeholder client workshops and strategy sessions to help teams progress their businesses
- Inspire confidence in clients as they adapt to new ways of working and thinking
Innovation Validation: 50% of time
- Identify where there is opportunity to build businesses given the corporate client's business objectives through a mixture of ideation and validation processes
- Use Lean Startup methodologies and Design Thinking to break those opportunities down into small, testable pieces - designing a rigorous testing system to do so
- Conduct qualitative and quantitative market research to rigorously validate business assumptions/opportunities
- Create business plans and models for new ventures, products and services - taking into account desirability, viability, and feasibility considerations
- Coach corporate teams who are in charge of validating some of these new venture concepts - providing tools and tips based on first hand experience
- Willing to get into the trenches with corporate teams, supporting on anything from product, design or development strategy (and knowing who to ask in the organization to fill in for these skills)
What you'll need
Qualifications
Required Skills / Experiences:
- 5+ years design, research or product development experience, giving you expertise in a hypothesis-driven approach to product or service development
- 3+ years experience consulting with client teams, ideally with some experience in innovation consulting specifically
- Experience applying Design Thinking and Lean Startup methodologies to products and services
- Ability to quickly understand a specific domain and identify the trends and opportunities in that space
- Experience being embedded in or coaching businesses or startups
- Experience managing small and nimble teams
- Experience working with multiple stakeholders
Desired Skills / Experiences:
- Experience launching and building new products (1st user)
- Experience in a high-pressure startup environment
- CPG client experience
- Proficient ability to do any of the following when required: market research, qualitative (user) research, quantitative research, foresight strategy, ideation, product management
- Technical or design skills are considered a plus
We're looking for
Core Skills
A little bit about us
Highline Beta
At Highline Beta, we celebrate our inclusive work environment and welcome members of all backgrounds and perspectives to apply. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations and will work with you to meet your needs. If you are a person with a disability and require assistance during the application process, please don't hesitate to reach out!
Are you interested?
Work With Us
At Highline Beta we build businesses. In some cases we support clients doing so organically, in other cases we create new startups solving real problems that matter and help great founders launch and scale. You'll have an opportunity to work with a deeply passionate and skilled team that cares about making the world a better place. You'll get to learn from a diverse team of investors, entrepreneurs, designers, product managers, and more. You'll be challenged daily to push yourself, gain new skills, practice and teach the ones you're already an expert in, and help everyone -- yourself, your team, our clients, and our collaborators -- win. Our preferred style is to work with the client, not for the client.