Growth Lead

Iterative is an accelerator that invests exclusively in startups in Southeast Asia. Founded in March 2020 by Hsu Ken Ooi and Brian Ma, Iterative has raised $65M across 2 funds, invested in 65+ companies, 120+ founders and the total value of Iterative companies is now worth $1.2 billion.

Our investors include Cendana, K5 Global, Village Global, Goodwater Capital with participation from a large network of Silicon Valley founders and execs including Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox), Achmad Zaky (Bukalapak), Andrew Chen (General partner a16z, Uber), Qasar Younis (Former COO YC, Applied Intuition), David Shim (Foursquare), Kum Hong Siew (Head of Airbnb Asia), Moses Lo (Founder, Xendit), and many more.

Iterative, as an organization, has 4 distinct functions and as a result, a team for each function.

1. Recruiting – Find startups for Iterative to invest in

2. Investments – Decide whether Iterative should invest in a startup

3. Iterative Founders – Help the founders Iterative has invested in

4. Support – Make Iterative a first class organization

Iterative is currently a team of 14 and growing quickly across each of these teams.

We're looking for a Growth Lead to come up with, build and scale new initiatives that attract the best founders in Southeast Asia to Iterative. Ideally, you're an ex-founder who has created something before regardless of the outcome or have led growth at an early-stage startup (Before Series A).

The types of initiatives that you might work on are..

1. Scout Program – Design a program that enables Iterative Founders and Friends to find and invest in startups on behalf of Iterative.

2. Co-Founder Matching – Take ownership of and build on top of our Co-Founder Matching Platform. Make it the best place to find a co-founder in Southeast Asia

3. [insert your idea] – Come up with your own initiatives to work on. We're particularly interested in ideas traditional venture capital firms wouldn't do but are helpful to founde

The long term goal of this role is for you to experiment with 20 initiatives, find the 5 that work and build a team to double down on them.

You will report directly to Hsu Ken.

Your job is to identify, find and attract the best founders in Southeast Asia. You'll do that by owning your own portfolio of initiatives. The initiatives in your portfolio can be products, programs, services, a space station, bubble tea shop, whatever. As long as it attracts the best founders in Southeast Asia.

More specifically, owning a portfolio of initiatives means the following..

• Create Initiatives – You will be expected to come up with your own initiatives. There's very little limits on what this could be as long as they do the above.

• Grow Initiatives – After you've created an initiative, just like after you've created a startup, you need to work on growing it.

• Scale Initiatives– If the initiative grows then it's successful and it will be your responsibility to scale it. That means (1) making iterations on the product, program or whatever and/or (2) building a team around it.

• Kill Initiatives – If the initiative doesn't grow then it's unsuccessful. It will be your responsibility to come up with a thesis on why it didn't work and stop the initiative.

To be clear, most of the time, even if you're very good, what you work on won't work. If what you do works most of the time, my hunch is you probably optimize for probability of success rather than magnitude of success. At Iterative, we're looking for people that optimize for magnitude of success.

You've started a startup or led growth at an early stage startup. That typically means you're a generalist who has an opinion on what we should do, how we should do it and does it.

To do that well, you will likely need these characteristics.

• Operate at Multiple Levels – You can come up with a 6 month strategy, break it down into monthly milestones, run weekly sprints to hit those milestones and execute on daily tasks to fulfill your sprint commitments.

• Strong Communicator – You communicate concisely and directly. You're able to tailor your communication for different audiences (team members, Iterative Founders, non-Iterative Founders, etc.). You're able to communicate not only what you're doing but why you're doing it.

• Data-Driven – You set goals and use data as a feedback loop to navigate whether you're headed in the right direction. When you are going in the right direction, you use data to figure out what's working. When you are not going in the right direction, you use data to figure out what isn't working and what the new direction should be.

• Resourceful – Whether it’s no-code tools, outreach, or process design — you know how to get things done with what you have.

• Self-Directed – You take ownership of projects, work independently, ask for help when needed

• Strong Opinions, Loosely Held – You do the work to develop strong opinions but have the intellectual honesty to change your mind if there's a better argument.

• Comfortable with Ambiguity – You often work on projects with undefined parameters, requiring you to assess whether the initiative is worth pursuing, define success metrics, and navigate unknowns to bring ideas to life.

• Curious and Experimental – You’re comfortable testing ideas, learning from failure, and pivoting when needed. You approach every project with a mindset of experimentation and continuous learning.

• Experience in a Startup – You have worked at an early stage startup or preferably, started your own startup. We don't count "startups within a large company" as startup experience.

• There’s usually only one open role, even if multiple locations are listed. We’re a fully remote team and open to hiring remotely, but LinkedIn requires a city for job postings, so don’t read too much into that! 🙂

• Learn more about our interview process here: FAQ - Interviewing at Iterative.

These are the Iterative values. They’re not for everyone but if they speak to you, you might be just what we’re looking for.

1. Iterate or Die – We take this literally. Ship early, get continuous feedback, and boldly experiment. If not the organization will die.

2. Empathy is Our Competitive Advantage – Our success depends on our ability to empathize with other people in the organization and the community.

3. Be Realistically Ambitious – The best strategy for making a big impact is to be realistic, have a plan and be ambitious.

4. Responsibility is a Privilege, Not a Right – Being part of Iterative means being given responsibility for a part of our business. Be a good steward of that responsibility by being accountable, diligent and open-minded.