Head of Growth

[Techne] | Full-time contractor | Boulder-based (or at least two weeks a month on the ground through Feb 2027) | USD

Focus: Get people onto the product and make sure they bring their friends. We're starting in Boulder to prove the model, then scaling nationally. You own user acquisition end-to-end: the field work, the creators, the paid tests, and the partnerships. You own the numbers that tell us what's actually working.

The mission

We're building something that moves people off their phones and back into their neighborhoods. Our first version, Beacon, lets you tell the people you actually know, "I'm going to the farmers market, find me there." It only works if your friends are on it. We are starting with mothers in Boulder because they are the center of the local social graph. If it works there, we move to the next city.

We can build a great product and still fail if nobody's friends are using it. This role exists so that doesn't happen.

What you will own

• We grow through circles. The product works when existing groups—a school grade, a team, a neighborhood—move onto it. You find the connectors, recruit them, and get their circles to join. Right now, this is ten ambassadors in Boulder. By February, it needs to be a playbook any city can run without us.
• The invite loop. We don't do follower counts or social proof. The only way we grow is through direct invites. You are responsible for how many people actually accept those invites. You'll work with the product lead on every screen that touches that flow.
• Creators and content. You'll manage local creators who make video about what's happening in town. You select them, brief them, and make sure they deliver.
• Paid acquisition. Meta and Instagram tests. This is a bridge, not the foundation. We run these tests against a strict cost ceiling with a "kill rule" if they don't perform.
• Partnerships. You'll find organizations with active audiences—schools, charities, local groups. You open the door, structure the deal, and measure if their people actually show up.
• The scorecard. We need to know where every user came from and what it cost to get them active. You publish these numbers weekly. This scorecard decides where next month's money goes.
• Key outcomes (what success looks like)
• You're inheriting a plan that's already in motion for September and October. Your job is to take it over and make it better.
• By December 15, 2026: 12 to 15 active circles in Boulder with at least 40% of members accepting invites. The scorecard is live and being used for board evaluations.
• By January 31, 2027: A finished playbook for moving into a second city. We need to see at least one active circle in a new market where you weren't physically on the ground.
• By February 28, 2027: Two growth channels running consistently inside our cost limits with clear documentation. You've built a solid list of local ambassadors and partners for the full launch.
• Ongoing: No "mystery" users. If we can't say where a user came from, they don't count.

Candidate profile

• We are looking for one of two backgrounds, and ideally someone who has done both.
• Organizer. You have run a distributed organizing program: relational organizing, volunteer-led canvass, chapter or neighborhood team structures. You have gotten thousands of people to do a physical thing in the same week and you had a system that told you whether they did. You know what a captain is, what a turf is, what a ladder of engagement is, and why the ask has to be small and the deadline has to be real. Political campaigns, labor, faith, mutual aid, community organizing at scale all count.
• Growth operator. You have grown a consumer product where the user brings the next user: a social, community, events or local product. You have owned an invite loop, a referral mechanic, or a city launch. You know the difference between a signup and an activated user and you have killed a channel because the numbers said to.
• In either case, you must have:
• Fluency in short vertical video as a distribution medium, either making it yourself or directing people who do. You know what makes a 20-second clip about a farmers market travel and what makes it look like an ad.
• Comfort being measured. You will be held to circle activation, K, and cost per occasion, published weekly. If you prefer to be judged on reach and impressions, this is the wrong job.
• A record of closing. Partnerships signed, ambassadors recruited, cohorts filled. Not "worked on" or "supported."
• Proximity to the audience or a demonstrated ability to earn it fast. You do not need to be a mother in Boulder. You need to be someone a mother in Boulder would take a call from and then text her friends about.
• The ability to work alongside a product team and argue with them about screens. Growth in this product lives inside the invite flow, and you need to be in that conversation, not downstream of it.
• What else you own
• Beyond acquisition, this role holds the public face of the product.
• Brand. You own the brand system once the name clears trademark: identity, design direction, and how it shows up in the product, on the site, in creator content and in ads. You brief designers and agencies; you do not need to be one.
• Voice. You write the voice guide and you enforce it. Every invite text, push notification, landing page, creator brief and ad reads like the same person wrote it, and that person is not a startup. The product's own copy sets the tone (short, plain, no engagement bait); you extend it to everything outside the app.
• Comms. You own what we say publicly and when: the marketing site, launch communications, press when it comes, and the cadence of what goes out on our own channels. You decide what gets said about the product before launch and you hold the line on what does not (no product name in public ahead of clearance, no donation asks ahead of fiscal sponsor confirmation).
• Messaging. One story about why this exists, told the same way to a mother in Boulder, a partner organization, a creator, and a funder. Emma will use it with donors. You write it and you keep it current as the pilots tell us what is true.

What this role is not

Not the field operator. Our current Field Operator recruits ambassadors and works circles on the ground in Boulder. You set his targets, give him the playbook, and read his numbers. You do not run his list.
Not the product lead. Our current Product lead owns what the product does and how the screens work. You own how people arrive and what they see before they get there, and you are in the room for every screen that touches the invite flow. Disagreements are settled with data from the scorecard, not by title.
Not a designer or a copywriter for hire. You direct brand and voice and you can write. You are not the person producing every asset.

Structure and compensation

Full-time independent contractor agreement, USD
Base range: $140,000 to $170,000 USD annually, set on experience and location.
Performance bonus: up to 25 percent of base, milestone-based, agreed in writing before start. Milestones are activated circles and occasions of community time.
No equity, token or phantom-equity compensation. All compensation approved through governance in a single decision before the offer is extended.
Boulder travel and field expenses covered.