Founding Lead of Growth — Brand & Distribution

I'm Michael, founder and CEO of Product.ai. I've been building commerce technology for 16 years - profitable, bootstrapped, 100% owner. No board. No outside investors. No one telling us what to ship.

We're building the truth engine for shopping. Every AI tool summarizes polluted data and calls it an answer. We verify.

I'm looking for a Founding Lead of Growth - one person who can own how the world discovers, understands, and trusts Product.ai. Not a Head of Marketing. Not a content strategist. A builder who can write in my voice, ship growth systems, and make Product.ai famous for being right when everyone else is guessing.

Why I Need This Person

I've been doing brand, content, and growth myself - CEO content on LinkedIn, company positioning, narrative architecture. It works when I have time. I don't have enough time. The company is at the inflection point where the mission needs to reach beyond my personal network, and I can't be the only voice.

I need someone who can apprentice to my voice - not replace it, but extend it. Someone who understands growth mechanics (SEO, AEO, distribution) AND can write with the clarity and conviction that earns trust in the AI era. Generic content is dead. AI produces infinite generic content. What survives is authority - named humans with real expertise saying real things.

The System You'll Need to Model

• A dual-brand architecture. Product.ai (the truth engine) and SimplyCodes (the coupon engine, our revenue engine). Different audiences, shared intelligence, one company identity. You'll need to hold both.
• An AI-era distribution landscape. SEO still matters. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is emerging - how do you get cited by AI models? The physics are different from search. 85% of AI citations come from third-party platforms, not brand-owned content.
• A CEO content engine. My LinkedIn presence drives inbound - talent, partnerships, industry recognition. You'll extend this, not replace it. Voice-apprentice posture: you learn to draft in my voice, I edit and publish.
• A company where content is strategy. What we publish isn't marketing - it's how we think. The Codex, the axiomatic intelligence framework, the verification thesis. Content here is intellectual production, not promotion.

What You Will Own

• Brand narrative and positioning. How Product.ai is understood in the market. The story that makes journalists, candidates, and potential partners say "I get it" in 30 seconds.
• Content production and distribution. CEO content pipeline (LinkedIn, Substack). Company content (blog, research studies, data reports). Multi-channel distribution calibrated to where our audience actually lives.
• Growth mechanics. SEO + AEO strategy. Organic traffic growth. Citation optimization for AI models. The measurement systems that tell us what's working.
• Voice architecture. My voice translated into scalable content. Not ghostwriting - voice apprenticeship. You learn how I think, then extend it into formats and channels I don't have time for.

Who You Are

• How you think. You reason from first principles about how ideas spread. You understand that distribution is a system, not a channel. You can hold brand strategy and growth mechanics in the same head without collapsing either into the other.
• How you work. You write with authority - clear, specific, opinionated. You've rebuilt content production around AI tools in the last 18 months. You ship - articles, campaigns, systems - not just strategies. You measure what you ship and you're honest about what didn't work.
• What you've probably built. A content or growth function at a company where you owned the full stack - strategy through execution through measurement. You've built editorial voice for a founder or brand. You've demonstrated AEO/SEO mechanics fluency with real results. We care about what you built, not which logo was on the door.
• Who this isn't for. This role is wrong if you have an established personal newsletter voice that you'd bring here - we need a voice apprentice, not a voice competitor. It's wrong if "AI handles all junior content" is your pitch. It's wrong if you're a portfolio fractional operator doing this for 5 clients. You'll thrive here if you want to build a brand that matters from the inside, at a company where content is how we think.

How We Evaluate

Written artifact. Something you've published that demonstrates voice clarity and growth thinking. A piece that moved a metric, built an audience, or changed how a brand was understood.

Video screen. How you think about brand, distribution, and what makes content earn trust in the AI era.

Conversation with me. Chemistry. Can you model how I think? Can I see you extending this voice?

Paid diagnostic. 90-day fractional engagement: Day 30 audit, Day 60 first production deliverables, Day 90 FTE conversion conversation. We both learn whether this works before committing.

Compensation & Ownership

• Total first-year comp: $275,000 - $375,000 (base + equity + profit sharing + revenue share).
• Base: $160,000 - $200,000.
• Equity: Profits Interest Units (PIUs) - $0 strike, Capital Gains, annual tender liquidity.
• Profit sharing: Annual FCF participation.
• Revenue share: 0.4% of company-wide revenue with $250K annual cap - you participate directly in the growth you drive.
• Benefits: 100% premium coverage. Unlimited PTO.

Based in Santa Monica. Hybrid, with flexibility. For the right builder, remote works - voice apprenticeship can happen async.

Apply here: https://product.ai/join/founding-lead-of-growth

Include your strongest published piece - something that shows how you think AND how you write. Not a portfolio. One piece.