Founder in Residence - Market Lead - DACH

Location: Berlin (on-site, regular travel within DACH)
Salary: €60,000 to €96,000 + equity
Stage: Seed | ~$3M raised | Team based in Poznań

What this company does

Public procurement accounts for up to 20% of EU GDP. Most companies competing for public contracts still track opportunities manually, miss deadlines, and lose bids they could have won. This platform scans over 5,000 EU tenders daily, matches them to the right companies, and helps those companies write stronger submissions faster. 115 clients onboarded in six months. The product works.

Why this role exists

All current traction is in Poland. DACH is the next market. There is no team there, no pipeline, no process, no brand recognition. You would be first.

What you will do

• Go to market in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland from zero

• Find and approach companies that regularly bid for public contracts: SMEs, consultancies, bidding specialists

• Run the full sales cycle yourself, from first contact to signed contract

• Build the process that a future team will inherit and scale

• Report market reality directly to the founders and shape product decisions with what you learn on the ground

What the job actually looks like

• Every meeting you get, you got yourself — cold outreach, events, direct referrals

• Buyers in public sector adjacent markets are slow, cautious, and process-heavy. You will spend significant time on deals that do not close

• The product is still evolving. You will sell something that is not finished and manage expectations accordingly

• You will be working alone in Berlin, coordinating with a small team in Poznań across time zones and without daily oversight

• There is no marketing budget generating leads for you. If the pipeline is empty, that is on you

What this role requires

• Fluent German and working knowledge of how DACH business decisions get made, not just the language

• Demonstrated experience building a sales pipeline or entering a new market from scratch in B2B, specifically in a domain where buyers are institutional or process-driven

• Prior experience in procurement, govtech, legaltech, or public sector sales — you need to understand how the buyer thinks before the first call

• Ability to close deals independently without manager approval at every step

• Tolerance for slow cycles, repeated objections, and building something that takes months before it shows results

What this role does not include

• Existing accounts or warm leads to inherit

• A local team or office

• Marketing support or inbound lead generation

• A clear job boundary — in a company this size, everyone does more than their title

Compensation and equity

• €60,000 to €96,000 base salary depending on experience

• Equity reflecting a founding-level contribution to a new market, not a standard employee grant