CEO and Co-Founder (Small Business Commercial Real Estate Marketplace)

High Alpha Innovation partners with the world’s leading organizations to innovate through startup creation. Part strategy consultancy, part venture builder, our team is a diverse mix of highly-experienced company builders, designers, and strategists who work with corporate and university partners to source, launch, and invest in venture studios and advantaged startups.

We’ve partnered with Huntington National Bank, a leading regional bank with 970 branches across 11 states. Huntington is an acknowledged leader in supporting America’s small businesses, and has been the nation’s top Small Business Administration (SBA 7(a)) lender by volume for six consecutive years. 

Together we are seeking a world-class entrepreneur for the role of CEO and Co-Founder for our newest company, Zocalo. Zocalo makes the market for commercial real estate more efficient, starting with matching small businesses who need space with those who have space through a two-sided marketplace software platform, enabling pop-up retail events that increase foot traffic, awareness, and community connections. Like Airbnb created a new market for residential real estate, Zocalo will unlock unused business space and put it to work while revitalizing local neighborhoods, starting with pop-ups and expanding to short and long term rentals.

As you build this business, you’ll be supported by the High Alpha Innovation team, who have seen exponential growth across a variety of SaaS platforms in multiple industries and successful exits.

As the CEO and Co-Founder, you will be responsible for building a big, important, and durable business from the ground-up. You will work to build conviction with the market, investors, and early customers as you bring the product to market. You will also set the go-to-market strategy and get the MVP into the hands of early customers. This is a unique opportunity to be a creator, builder, and innovator to build a world-class product from scratch. 

What You'll Do:

• Serve as a leader and co-founder to shape corporate strategy and company vision while building conviction in the market, with investors, and customers
• Drive growth, profitability and company value while implementing scalable and efficient strategies to ensure consistent results and exponential growth
• Align resources to achieve key business goals and milestones 
• Own the operational budget and managing burn rate and runway
• Report updates to the Board of Directors and corporate stakeholders regarding progress on strategic goals
• Assist with creating and executing a fundraising strategy to drive interest from outside VC investors
• Set the vision for the company and define the overall strategy from launch to scale.
• Structure a thoughtful organizational hiring plan and recruit, retain & develop world-class talent against that plan.
• Drive strategy and decision-making across all functional areas, including business development, product, marketing & content, operations, and finance.
• Determine the highest-order KPIs and build the plan and team to measure, monitor, and improve them.
• Lead all fundraising activities to support growth objectives in partnership with High Alpha Innovation.
• Develop a comprehensive framework for initiating and supporting relationships across the commercial real estate and small business space
• Develop strategic relationships with development and channel partners to further Zocalo’s offering.
• Design, execute and continually iterate go-to-market strategies.
• Assist in defining, evaluating, and evolving the product roadmap by identifying new opportunities and gaps through strategic relationships with vendors and venues
• Drive operations and operational rigor, including full P&L and cash flow management.
• Create and sustain a great company culture with articulated values that provides inspired leadership and enables a great working relationship to the team across all levels.

Requirements

What You'll Need:

• Demonstrated experience in selling SaaS products and marketplaces while also building high performing teams
• Experience or exposure to marketplace software business models, ideally with experience in commercial real estate or small business operations
• A passion and vision for supporting small business owners and providing opportunities for them to expand their product offerings
• Founder experience is preferred or experience working in an early stage venture backed company in a key leadership role
• Venture capital fundraising experience preferred or other relevant experience across sales, negotiations or corporate development
• Strong track record of tackling difficult challenges, a strong work ethic and desire to build a high growth company
• An entrepreneurial mindset along with the grit and determination to scale a company from scratch

• Demonstrated experience in selling SaaS products and marketplaces while also building high performing teams
• Experience or exposure to marketplace software business models, ideally with experience in commercial real estate or small business operations
• A passion and vision for supporting small business owners and providing opportunities for them to expand their product offerings
• Founder experience is preferred or experience working in an early stage venture backed company in a key leadership role
• Venture capital fundraising experience preferred or other relevant experience across sales, negotiations or corporate development
• Strong track record of tackling difficult challenges, a strong work ethic and desire to build a high growth company
• An entrepreneurial mindset along with the grit and determination to scale a company from scratch

Benefits

What we offer: 

• Salary plus equity plan
• Medical, Dental & Vision Insurance 
• Flexible work location within the United States 
• A collaborative, entrepreneurial environment with a proven venture studio playbook
• A highly validated concept and business model hypothesis developed by our team 
• Pre-seed funding committed by our partner
• The support of the venture studio and platform services, we surround the startup with world-class expertise in every discipline required to build a market-leading company