We’re Hiring a Head of Business Development in Boston

As our Head of Business Development, you’ll develop strategic relationships with business leaders who can help founders accelerate the growth of their companies.

Apply Here

One of the most critical ways to rapidly accelerate a startup’s pace of growth is through access to customers––people who can give you early feedback to help validate that you’re solving for real customer pain, people who can shape your product direction, and people who can help you center on the right go-to-market strategy. If you’re lucky, one day the same people may turn into your first customers. As our Head of Business Development, you’ll build strategic relationships with key business leaders, opening the door to prospective customers and advisors for our portfolio companies.

Who We Are

Pillar is the first capital in for founders building the next-generation of pillar companies in Boston. We’re proud investors in companies like PillPack, Desktop Metal, Algorand, Hometap, Kuebix, Asimov, and Soofa.

We started Pillar with the belief that there has to be a better way for founders and investors to align. We began with a simple hypothesis — that if we treat founders the way we would want to be treated, that good things will happen. That if we align every incentive, every action and decision to realize mutual benefit, we will engender trust, and from that, achieve profound results. It’s that simple.

Our firm was co-founded by Jamie Goldstein, who spent 18 years at North Bridge Venture Partners, and 17 world-class CEOs and executives from top Boston companies like Wayfair, TripAdvisor, DraftKings and Rapid7. All are investors in our firm, but are also owners, bringing their insight and experience to our portfolio companies as advisors, mentors, board members and customers. Goldstein is joined by Russ Wilcox (E Ink, Transatomic Power, Piper Therapeutics) and Sarah Hodges (Pluralsight, RunKeeper, Intelligent.ly) in managing the fund, and by team members, Parker McKee and Katie Mulligan. Collectively, we have over 50 years’ experience building and scaling companies.

Who You Are

• You have a diverse network. Each person on our team brings a unique set of relationships to our firm and our portfolio; together we’re stronger than we could ever be alone. You have a complementary network that helps us access, connect with and learn from an interesting new group of people.
• You’re a connector. You enjoy meeting new people and building a community, but more importantly, thrive on putting people together who mutually benefit from shared skills, ideas, and perspectives.
• You know how to get your foot in any door. Whether it’s the CEO of a public company, a sales leader at a multi-billion dollar SaaS business or an award-winning faculty member at a top tier university, you thrive on building relationships. You never hesitate to connect when you’re interested in meeting someone new, and are always considering how to create value for the person you want to meet.
• You understand which connections are most valuable to a company. Perhaps you’ve worked in a company before in a sales or business development role, or maybe you’ve even led your own company. Either way, you know how to identify which introductions are the most high value at any point in time.
• You have your eye on the long game. You know that the best way to build meaningful relationships with people is to give, not to ask. You’re always investing in helping the people around you; you do it without the intention of receiving anything in return, but you also realize you’re creating goodwill that will pay off long-term.
• You’re an operational wiz. You thrive on creating systems to help you organize knowledge and relationships, helping to connect the dots between people and ideas.

Your Responsibilities

• Work closely with our investing team and our portfolio companies to understand opportunities to open doors to customers, partners, advisors, and mentors.
• Collaborate with our portfolio companies to understand where they are in their growth, helping them think strategically about connections that could be valuable in the near and long-term. Become a go-to resource for our founders.
• Meet with business leaders who can be valuable to our portfolio founders across all the areas in which we invest––enterprise SaaS, blockchain, synthetic biology, AI/ML, and more. Keep these relationships fresh by creating value for the broader Pillar community. Introduce founders to relevant experts, experiences and resources to provide useful insight. Connect the dots between these people, and watch the sparks fly.
• Collaborate with other members of our platform team to plan, host and attend events that support and grow our relationships with senior leaders inside companies across Boston and beyond.

How to Apply

Our process starts with having candidates answer two questions by recording videos, as well as submitting two short written pieces. Apply here.

Here are the questions:

1. Video 1: Why are you interested in the Head of Business Development role? [30 seconds]
2. Video 2: Tell us about a meaningful connection you made between two people and how you were helpful?[60 seconds]
3. Written 1: An email asking for a meeting with someone from the Boston tech community who you are interested in getting to know.
4. Written 2: Choose a company in our Pillar portfolio and recommend a specific connection you think could add the most value to the business. Describe why. [750 words max]