Director, Business Development, Undersea Warfare
Company Intro: TurbineOne is a fast-moving and high-performance software startup with the mission of delivering the most valuable AI to warfighters serving at our nation’s frontlines. Our Frontline Perception System is an edge-first software platform that allows anyone to build and leverage machine learning models on all data types within comms-contested tactical environments.
Sales Team: You would join a successful team of veterans whose leaders have won $100M+ programmatic funding and delivered essential capabilities to frontline warfighters. Your teammates would include five former Commanders of the Joint Intel Brigade, a former Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, two former Directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial Agency. You will also have inspiring partners in the Product and Engineering teams, who are highly responsive to customer needs.
Job Title: Director, Business Development, Undersea Warfare
- Reporting to the TurbineOne Sales Principal for Naval Warfare.
- Geographically flexible for home-office and moderate domestic travel (~25%) should be expected.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Develop the business strategy. Find the relevant military Requirement that our technology is uniquely capable of serving. Map the engagement and education pathways with relevant stakeholders, reduce the risk of employment through exercises/prototypes, and then secure funding for the capability.
- Deliver new revenue. Partner, directly and contractually, with the U.S. Navy to include special operations and Marine Corps units.
- You will identify sales opportunities, drive leads into the sales funnel by directly engaging buyers, pitch our product (with support from the Ops team), document the scope of work (in collaboration with the CTO), and negotiate the contract (with pricing approval from the CEO).
- Identify the right military leaders with the right kind of power, then with the utmost care and ethical conduct, convince that person to become a fanatical champion for TurbineOne’s product.
- Document warfighter needs in a manner that is explainable to Silicon Valley engineers and investors.
- Contribute to the company's overall business strategy and marketing positioning.
- Educate the U.S. military on how AI/ML can advance their missions in frontline environments.
In a Typical Week You Will:
- Fly to a military base to witness our product being used by uniformed service members in classified operating environments.
- Host a Zoom call with military exercise Coordinators and pitch them on why TurbineOne should be included in the event.
- Deliver live product demonstrations to help convince those with unobligated government funds to spend it on TurbineOne.
- Write a short Scope of Work document so that T1’s Capture Manager can expand the 1-pager into a 25-page package for a Contracting Officer.
- Get rejected by a personal friend that you thought would give us a giant contract, but for some undefined reason, is newly unresponsive to your messages.
- Educate old colleagues on why they should not buy the snake oil from a large Defense contractor.
Desired Experience:
- You’ve served in the Navy or Marine Corps for over >20 years.
- You are expertly informed on the Requirements of the U.S. Submarine, undersea warfare, and/or Naval Nuclear communities.
- You have led technology-related projects for DoW to solve pressing problems.
- You’ve personally closed, managed, signed or negotiated at least one >$10M contract.
Startup Culture Expectations:
- Please refer to Elad Gil’s High Growth Handbook for general expectations on what should be “normal” for a company like TurbineOne.
- Just like in the White House, you will need to make your own photocopies. No great startup can afford Executive Assistants or most other luxuries.
- Every employee will develop quarterly metrics in order to transparently communicate, and objectively measure, one’s own performance.
- Everyone on the Team needs to be very comfortable with constant change, moving fast, sharing failures, embracing grit, and building things themselves. Most startups fail and no one will come to save us.
