Chief Growth Officer
About Universe
The opportunity to work with a platform with viral reach and a successful serial entrepreneur is huge. This is a growth role that is beyond just paid media. It's truly full-funnel.
Acquisition
Engagement
Subscription/Monetization
A/B Testing
Retention
Referral
Rare opportunity for a product-minded mobile leader to steer the business and growth of a platform democratizing web design.
Team
Universe's entire product and stack is currently mobile-first and mobile-focused, and that represents the foreseeable future of the product. Therefore, it is really important for the Chief Growth Officer to have strong mobile app experience. Ideally, across both Android and iOS.
If you have been on an early mobile product team with a product focused on engaging and delighting core users, and helped to take that product to successful scale and iterative growth, you would be an amazing hire.
Product Differentiation
Remote • Brooklyn HQ
Inform product
BASE QUALIFICATIONS
Competitive compensation for an exceptional Chief Growth Officer, with both base and equity.
Universe is the first website builder designed from the ground up for phones. We make a complex process super fun and powerful for everyone. This is possible because of our breakthrough grid editor, which allows anyone to make sophisticated sites from their phones without code. (This site was built with the app.)
We were part of YC Winter 18, raised $7.2M to date from tier 1 VCs like Javelin, Greylock, and General Catalyst, and just hit 200,000 sites created.
We’re a 6 person distributed team with a headquarters in NYC, driven by the larger goal of empowering everyone to build the internet. In this role, we’re looking for someone who can help us grow our business to the next level.
Resource allocation
Sprint planning
Complex problem-solving
Development workflow processes from idea creation to deliver to analysis
CONTACT
WHAT YOU’LL DO
Mobile-first and product first
COMPENSATION
If interested and qualified, please reach out to anish@bringruckus.com.
The first key to a successful hire will be an ability to operate within the uncertainty and cap on resources that are innate in all startups. You should be able to point to experience where you led Business, Growth, and Product Management decisions while part of a small team and demonstrated success.
At this stage, a delegator will not be the right fit for the Chief Growth Officer. If your first strategic recommendation is “We need to hire a big team”, this isn’t the right role for you. Your wrists should be touching the table.
With so many different areas to optimize and test, having muscle memory of how to move fast, prioritize, and focus on results will make you a star.
WHY UNIVERSE
Universe was founded by serial entrepreneur and designer, Joseph Cohen. He’s long dreamed of building a tool that makes the power of computing available to everyone.
As a student at Penn, Joseph was frustrated with outdated products that students were forced to use. He proceeded to build a digital classroom product, put together a team of cofounders, raise $6mm in venture financing, grow the user base to over 150,000 in more than 600 schools, and eventually sold to Noodle - the Princeton Review founder's startup - in March 2013.
From there forward, Joseph spent the next 3 years envisioning and prototyping what would eventually become Universe from the desire to turn phones into even greater creative devices.
The team has now expanded to 6 geographically dispersed team members, and is growing quickly.
Early, but with traction
You have led Growth and Product decisions for a fast-growing consumer mobile-first company, ideally helping to grow subscriptions, conversions, and/or monetization.
Highly quantitative - you make decisions based on testing and rigorous data analysis, and can present data-driven assumptions and learning
You have taken a mobile product to millions of users and ideally millions of dollars in revenue
Overseen organic and paid acquisition programs, with an eye towards high-quality retained users
Universe is still an early-stage Series A startup. But with that, the product has seen traction and viral Growth.
The team of engineers and designers have done a great job of building an early product, releasing it, learning what works best for people, and iterating from there. But they need a true data-driven Growth Leader internally to make sure they're testing, iterating, and growing.
As the company's Growth leader, you get the opportunity to step into the company at a stage when the product is at a great place, and you need to add more fuel to the fire. Feel like a startup founder without the first few years struggling to cobble together a product and find product-market-fit.
Steer acquisition
Startup experience will be key
While it will take some paid media to hit objectives, by no means should you be a one-trick pony with buying ads
It will be much more important to be a Product leader than an ad-buying leader
That being said, experience with organic and paid acquisition will be great.
Own growth
Most site builders focus on templates to make the process quick and easy for their users. But that also leads to most sites looking the same and not allowing people to actually be creative.
Universe uses a grid editor (think 3x5 blocks) to place images, text, video, and buttons quickly on their phones, while still keeping the design complexity low and making sure the resulting sites look cohesive.
Mobile is eating world—and web creation won’t be left behind. While 80% of the web is now consumed on a phone, virtually none of it created on a phone. That will change. It’s only a matter of time.
Iterative and analytical funnel tuning of the core product
Determine when and how to pull various levers to hit business objectives
(of course, this site was made with Universe on a phone)
IDEAL FIT
Collaborate