Founding Marketplace General Manager, Education FinTech

On-site (San Francisco, CA; frequent travel to Arizona) · $130K–$180K · 1 opening

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**About the company**

An early-stage, well-funded fintech startup building the payment infrastructure for a large and rapidly growing pool of US education funds — giving parents direct, instant access to education dollars they're newly entitled to under recent state policy changes. The product is live and growing quickly in one state, expanding into others, and the company has raised meaningful funding from top-tier investors. The team is small, in-person, and intensely mission-driven.

**The role**

The card product is the wedge; the marketplace is the company's actual core business, and this is the founding GM role to build it from zero. You'll own the cold-start problem: building vendor relationships that range from small local education providers up to major national retailers, then figuring out how to merchandise those offerings inside the app so parents actually purchase, and how to structure commission terms with vendors to build a real revenue line. Think of it the way an Uber or Lyft GM would think about launching and building up a brand-new city.

**What you'll own**

- The marketplace build from zero to one, including the cold-start problem itself

- Vendor relationships ranging from small local education providers to major national retailers, prioritizing depth over breadth

- In-app merchandising — positioning offerings so parents actually purchase and follow through

- Take-rate and commission structuring with vendors to build a real revenue line

- Regular travel, including frequent trips to support the business outside San Francisco

**What you must bring**

- Genuine 0-to-1 operating experience — comfortable owning a P&L and the underlying numbers, not just executing someone else's plan

- Strong intuition for cold-start and SMB distribution problems, with real "launch a new market" energy

- Vendor-facing confidence and charisma, with a track record of building a small number of deep relationships rather than many shallow ones

- A genuine product-and-operations mindset — you think naturally about both in-app conversion and commercial deal terms

- A demonstrated habit of running your own experiments unprompted, not simply executing projects a manager assigned you

- High energy and willingness to work intensely, including regular travel

- Genuine, considered alignment with the company's mission — this space intersects directly with real, active policy debate around public education funding, and you should be comfortable engaging with that reality, not just the product pitch

**Nice to have**

- Prior founder experience, particularly with a consumer product

- Experience as a GM at a marketplace company that has launched new markets or cities

- A background as a D1 athlete, team captain, or similar high-intensity competitive experience

- Based in Arizona already, if otherwise an exceptional fit

**Compensation & logistics**

- $130K–$180K base salary plus 0.2%–0.4% equity

- Benefits include medical, dental, vision, fully covered group term life, health FSA, and 401(k)

- Based in San Francisco with frequent travel required

- 1 opening

- Visa sponsorship available

**This isn't the right fit if**

- Your resume reads as a list of projects a manager assigned you, rather than things you initiated yourself

- You favor breadth over depth in relationship-building

- You're low-energy or unwilling to travel regularly

- You're an analyst or strategy-type profile without real 0-to-1 building experience

- You're not genuinely comfortable with the political and policy dimensions of this space