Join our team. Invest in innovators.

One definition of an entrepreneur is that an entrepreneur acts on opportunity without regard to resources they currently control. Well, I have an opportunity for you to act on — We are hiring at Matter.

We are looking for an Associate to join our team and help us expand our efforts to source, select, and support entrepreneurs building the future of media through our start-up accelerator and seed fund.

This is an excellent opportunity to be exposed to design thinking, early-stage entrepreneurship, media innovation, and venture capital. By joining our small, growing team you’ll have a back stage pass to what Inc. calls one of the hottest start-up accelerators in Silicon Valley.

But we don’t care about our press. What we care about is creating life-changing learning experiences for our entrepreneurs so that they can grow as leaders, take a big swing at their dreams, and make an impact on the future of media.

We do this by investing in the world’s most promising early-stage media entrepreneurs and supporting them by building a culture of experimentation, guided by a community of mentors, and united by a structured 20-week program that accelerates their learning.

We are beginning to scale the ways we make this impact, including doubling down on our SF accelerator, exploring an expansion to NYC, bringing on new industry partners, and launching a seed investing initiative.

We currently have one Associate helping make this all happen. We are hiring a second Associate to further expand our impact.

Under the mentorship of the Managing Partner, the Associates will work together to run the Accelerator Program, help source, select, and support both accelerator and seed companies, and develop investment hypotheses and thought leadership.

The timing couldn’t be better to make an impact.

Specific responsibilities include:

• Accelerator Program — Co-lead, manage, and constantly improve Matter’s 20-week start-up accelerator program, including activities such as our selection process, kick-off bootcamp and retreat, monthly design reviews, weekly workshops, speaker series, and mentor office hours, and semi-annual Demo Days in SF and NYC. Coach and mentor Matter entrepreneurs and connect them to the right people and resources in our community. Learn how to teach and coach design thinking process as applied to early stage entrepreneurship under the mentorship of the Managing Partner.
• Investment — Source, evaluate, select, and close investments in early-stage media ventures for both the accelerator program and seed fund. Investment includes (but is not limited to) sourcing promising early-stage media entrepreneurs for the accelerator program and generating high-quality deal flow for the seed fund while representing the Matter brand, reading and evaluating applications and pitch decks, conducting initial interviews, participating in semi-finalist and finalist interviews, analyzing ventures and writing investment recommendations, presenting at deal flow meetings, conducting and managing the due diligence process, and managing the deal closing process.
• Thought Leadership — Develop investment hypotheses and thought leadership by synthesizing deal flow data and trends, staying on top of industry news and research, conducting interviews with experts and industry leaders, contributing to the Matter Medium Collection, and sharing insights via a professional social media presence.
• Portfolio Support — Help support, mentor, and connect Matter’s growing portfolio of 34+ ventures. Collect, monitor, synthesize, and communicate the progress, performance, and needs of portfolio companies.
• Ecosystem Development — Proactively grow Matter’s community of entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, and partners by networking, attending events, researching experts, and generally building good karma by helping others in the ecosystem. Contribute to our CRM system.
• Supporting and collaborating with the Managing Partner and Matter Team as needed. Other tasks as needed.

Skills & Experience:

• Professional Experience — Must have professional experience and expertise that would establish the Associate as a helpful and credible mentor to our early-stage media entrepreneurs. This experience can range from being an experienced start-up founder, to leading product design, to teaching and coaching design thinking process, to sourcing and evaluating investments in a previous role in early stage venture capital, to experience leading innovation at a media company. Have a point-of view of the unique superpower you would bring to our start-ups. Bringing a strong, relevant professional network is a plus. Experience working on small, collaborative, scrappy teams in a fast-moving environment. Undergraduate degree required. Masters degree, such as an MBA, is a plus but not required.
• Skills — Must be able to source and evaluate early stage start-up investment opportunities. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including writing investment memos, blog posts, and emails, making and presenting decks using Keynote, and interacting with key stakeholders such as entrepreneurs, investors, and executives. Excellent public speaker. Experience coaching and mentoring others. Previous teaching experience a plus. Familiarity with user-centered, prototype-driven design process. Ability to quickly model businesses and size markets in Excel a plus. Tech savvy and familiar with tools such as Excel, Keynote, Slack, Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Drive, RelateIQ, and Mac hardware and software.
• Personal Characteristics — Passionate about supporting early-stage media entrepreneurs to learn, grow, and achieve their dreams. Intrinsically motivated to help and coach others. High EQ. Ability to inspire. Excited to apply a human-centered, prototype-driven approach to helping build Matter. Creative problem-solver with entrepreneurial drive and comfort with ambiguity. No job below you and no job above you. Hungry to always be learning. Scrappy.

Salary based on experience and qualifications. We offer a competitive benefits package including health care, dental, vision, 401K with a 4% employer match, commuter benefits, and other perks.

This position will work full-time out of our innovation space near South Park in San Francisco. Some night and weekend work required. Occasional travel required. (Ability and interest to relocate to NYC if opportunity arises in the future is of interest but definitely not required or guaranteed.)

Apply

Excited to join our team? We’d love to hear from you.

Part I — Fill out our Applicant Information Form right now.

Part II — Compose a cover letter describing why you are an excellent fit for this position and what superpower you would bring to support and mentor our entrepreneurs. Compile your cover letter, resume, a writing sample, and 3 professional references into one pdf named “LastName_ FirstName.pdf” and email it to jobs@matter.vc with the subject “Associate.”

If you stand out to us we will follow up to learn more. We look forward to meeting you!

Originally posted on Medium.