Hirehouse recruitment
Founders Associate
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
Founder's Associate — London (on-site) | £60,000–£80,000 + 2–5% equity
I'm hiring a Founder's Associate for a bootstrapped, profitable consumer subscription business in London. I'm going to be unusually honest in this advert, because the fastest way to waste everyone's time is to attract the wrong people to a role like this.
About the opportunity
The company grew to seven-figure revenue in under two years without raising a penny. It's profitable, it's growing, and the founder currently runs marketing, sales and operations personally. That intensity is exactly what built the business — and it's now the bottleneck. The founder cannot be at the centre of every decision forever.
The next phase is ambitious: a new arm of the business is launching, and the goal is to build something genuine unicorn potential over the next five years, with a deliberately small team. This hire is the first and most important step in that plan.
The role
There is no rigid job description here, and if that sentence makes you uncomfortable, stop reading now.
You will work 1:1 with the founder, daily, in person. You'll sit close enough to learn how they think, and your job is to make the whole company move faster and better. In practice that means:
- Running high-leverage strategic projects — including testing new product lines and growth initiatives
- Spotting and removing bottlenecks, ideally before the founder has noticed them
- Turning what's in the founder's head into simple systems and SOPs the team can actually follow
- Executing across marketing, sales, operations and customer support — owning outcomes, not just plans
What success looks like
Within 90 days, you've taken real work off the founder's plate and it's running better than when they held it. Decisions in your areas happen without escalation. The team has processes where there used to be tribal knowledge. The founder trusts you with ambiguity because you've earned it — not because you were given it.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
Who this suits
Someone with 1–3 years in a high-intensity environment — a startup, a scale-up, or your own venture — who has operated in a small team (under 20 people) and can show clear evidence of structured thinking: taking messy, ambiguous problems, breaking them down, and executing in the right order. Flawless written and verbal communication is non-negotiable.
What actually matters most
- Judgment. You make good decisions without being told what to do. You know when something is good enough and when it needs more thought.
- Attention to detail. You catch the small mistakes before anyone else does. You leave things better than you found them.
- Speed of learning. You rarely need to be told the same thing twice. You take feedback, apply it, and improve.
- Speed of execution. You get important work done quickly, at a high standard. You don't confuse being busy with making progress.
- Proactivity. You don't wait for instructions. You see a problem or an opportunity and you take ownership.
- Low ego. You care more about being right than looking right. Direct feedback is a gift, not a threat.
- Empathy. You understand what customers and teammates actually need, and you make their lives easier.
Read this section carefully — this role is NOT for you if:
- You want a standard 9–5 or a predictable work-life balance. This is not that, and pretending otherwise helps no one.
- You need regular direction, validation or hand-holding to execute. If your instinct when facing an ambiguous task is to ask what to do rather than form a view, this will be a miserable experience for you.
- You're detail-blind. In this role, small missed details compound into real problems fast. If "roughly right" is your default standard, don't apply.
- You prefer a slow, stable, corporate environment — or you're trying to escape one without understanding what you're escaping into.
- You'd rather move fast than move correctly. Speed matters here, but never at the cost of judgment.
- You want to have a job rather than build a company.
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
The interview process is designed to test all of the above properly — including a real task and a paid trial day — so if any of these apply, you'll find out anyway. Better to be honest with yourself now.
Why join
Because there is no faster education than sitting next to a founder who bootstrapped a profitable seven-figure business, at the exact moment the ambition steps up an order of magnitude. You'll have true autonomy, real equity, and a direct hand in shaping what this company becomes. In three years you'll either be running a significant part of this business or exceptionally well-prepared to start your own.
The package
- £60,000–£80,000 base, depending on experience
- 2–5% equity (4-year vesting, 1-year cliff), with additional milestone grants tied to revenue — flexible for a stellar candidate
- London, 5 days a week in the office (South West London)
- Immediate start
The process
Initial phone interview - founder interview → task → paid trial day. It moves quickly, and it's deliberately demanding.
If this sounds like you, and you're serious, please submit your CV, supporting documents, portfolio, or past work examples to crozero@hirehouse.co.uk along with a short summary on why this role suits you
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills
Location