About MeritFirst
At MeritFirst, we’re on a mission to revolutionize how companies identify and evaluate talent, regardless of background. By rejecting outdated, unreliable proxies for capability and embracing objective, merit-based assessments, we are rebuilding the meritocratic infrastructure of opportunity from the ground up.
Role Overview
You will be the company’s first dedicated commercial engine, working directly with the CEO to refine our revenue motion. This isn’t a standard sales role - you are an architect of growth. You will hunt down the first strategic accounts, close deals, and act as the primary translator between the market and our team. You will toggle between high-level channel strategy and "in the trenches" work hourly. This is a high-ownership role for a relentless builder who moves fast and wants to define how a disruptive product goes to market.
What You’ll Do
Build the revenue engine: Identify, prospect, and close customers. You won't just run a playbook; you will write it - testing pricing models, messaging, and sales channels to find what sticks.
Act as a forward-deployed partner: Embed with strategic customers to ensure smooth rollouts, uncover implementation pain points, and drive rapid time-to-value.
Close the product feedback loop: Synthesize raw customer objections and wins into actionable product requirements. You ensure we build what the market actually needs, not just what we think it needs.
Operationalize sales: Automate outreach flows and build the dashboards that give us visibility into our pipeline.
Drive experiments: Run lightweight growth experiments (e.g., cold outreach campaigns, webinar partnerships) to validate hypotheses and scale lead generation.
Qualifications
Excellent commercial mindset: You have a track record of convincing people to take action, whether in early-stage sales, intense business development, or founder-led roles. You aren't afraid to pick up the phone.
Builder mentality: You don’t need a sales ops team to survive. You are comfortable building your own lead lists, writing your own scripts, and setting up your own tools.
AI-native: You use AI tools daily to automate prospecting research, draft personalized outreach at scale, and analyze pipeline data, moving from idea to execution instantly.
Exceptional communicator: You can simplify complex technical value propositions into compelling narratives for HR leaders and executives.
Resilience and bias for action: You identify the 80/20, make the call, and ship. Rejection fuels you to iterate and improve.
Why Join Us?
Autonomy: rapid growth with outsized ownership and scope
Meritocracy: We focus on real capabilities, not credentials. You’ll be assessed based on your skills and ability to execute, not the name of your school or employer.
Innovation: Work on cutting-edge projects that challenge the status quo and empower people to succeed.
Backed by the best: We’re funded by 8VC and Slow Ventures, with support from world-class builders like Joe Lonsdale and Sam Lessin who’ve helped scale some of the most influential tech companies of the last decade.
Our Process
We practice what we preach. Core to our thesis is that resumes, school names, and pedigree are poor proxies for capability. We want to see what you can actually do.
We have designed a hiring process that gives everyone a fair shot to showcase their skills through objective work samples.
The Steps:
Assessment 1 (The Gateway): Linked here. Want to jump the line? You can start this right now. We prioritize candidates who have data on the board.
Team Screen: A conversation with a member of our team to discuss your background, our company, and the results of your first assessment.
Assessment 2 (The Deep Dive): A "Navigating Ambiguity" work sample designed to mimic actual challenges you might face in the role.
Work Sample Debrief: A deep-dive interview where we discuss your approach to Assessment 2.
Final Sync: A final conversation with one or more members of our team.
Important Note on Location:
We are an in-person team based in Austin, TX. We believe the speed of iteration required at this stage happens best when we are in the same room.
The "No Dead Ends" Guarantee:
Even if this specific role isn't the right fit - or if the location doesn't work out - your effort won't be wasted. By completing our assessments, you will create a verified profile in the MeritFirst Talent Network. This allows you to showcase your validated skills to other world-class companies in our ecosystem without having to apply from scratch.
Top Skills
What We Do
8VC is a venture capital fund based in Austin, Texas. For more information, please visit www.8VC.com
