Studio Lead (Italy)

👋 Hey, We're Founders Factory

About Founders Factory: 

Founders Factory builds and funds startups together with exceptional entrepreneurs and the world's leading companies. Created by IPO-exited founders and headquartered in London, Founders Factory offers founders capital, operational support from a team of 100 hands-on experts, and unrivalled access to a coalition of industry leading corporate partners.

Founders Factory's Venture Studio co-founds businesses from inception, developing new ideas, technologies and business models into high growth companies. 

Operating sector-focused Accelerator programmes and Venture Funds for Pre-Seed and Seed stage startups, Founders Factory invests in talented and diverse founding teams across industries and geographies - with a current focus on FinTech, Health, Climate, Media & Telecoms, Consumer and Web3. 

Since 2015, Founders Factory's 300 portfolio companies have raised $800mm follow-on funding from leading funds and investors.

The Opportunity:

Milan is staking a claim as one Europe’s most exciting startup hubs.

Since we launched Founders Factory Italy HQ there earlier this year, we’ve partnered with leading investment bank Mediobanca and telecoms giant Fastweb to build and scale the next generation of Italian entrepreneurs.

Our goal is for Founders Factory Italy to be the best platform for founders to start and grow their startups. We are looking for someone who shares that ambition, is product-driven and has the passion and expertise to achieve it.

What you'll do:

As we expand into Italy, bringing on a Studio Lead is fundamental. You’ll be one of our first hires in this new location and help to establish our new office. You will have the unique opportunity to work as the co-founder to our EIR’s across many of our studio ventures. You will need to be able to inspire top founders as well as support them in the capacity of a co-founder while dealing with immense uncertainty and solving diverse problems.

🎯 As the Studio Lead, your role will be:

A "Pre-founder" of our ventures. You will work on identifying the riskiest hypothesis as well as any key work streams that will support founder hiring You will lead our cross-functional team for each studio venture and act as the key stakeholder for the founders of our studio businesses. It will be up to you to turn ambiguous ideas into a product MVP within 6 months, validating your decisions commercially along the way, so that a founding team can grow from that MVP into a fully-fledged business. You will work with our partners & venture design team to determine the strategic direction and investment decisions ensuring that we are building a strong and valuable portfolio as well as the exceptional delivery of our program. You will be the link between the founder and Founders Factory using your experience to enable the founder to get the most out of the program as well as leveraging the wider teams skills. acting as a co-founder to build the venture, rally a core team around you and the founder, unlock advantages through our network and ultimately making sure the venture spins out on time and un budget.

🙌 In your day-to-day, you may find yourself doing the following:

Lead our cross-functional squads in creating the different product strategies and helping bring the MVPs to life by partnering with the founder, leading a team of functional experts and providing hands-on support where needed. Take an active part and be a key decision maker in hiring the founder, prioritising culture fit and skill set. Work with studio managers to determine an appropriate core team for venture and take responsibility for onboarding the founder. Forecast studio budgets with the founder/s. Keep track of internal spend, approve use of funds and ensure resources and costs are managed effectively. You will be entrepreneurial and together with the founder help drive the business forward while keeping it under prudent control. Collaborate with founders to define product roadmaps against KPIs and product goals, responsible for ensuring all work is broken down into clear requirements for the various team members working on a given project. Support founders in their own growth – some of our startups are launching their first product, others need support on existing applications, and we help guide their decisions and build through all aspects of the product and software development lifecycle; design, product, engineering & data science. Work with our global team of partners and functional experts to ensure that we are providing the best possible support to founders and building amazing products. Support our Venture Design team on product discovery research (qualitative and quantitative data). Consolidate, prioritise and action feedback from funding partners, commercial and product teams. You will be closely engaged with all the workings of the new venture and be answerable for its actions. Together with the founders you will help to develop a big vision & mission and guide changes in direction where necessary. Act as an advocate for the new venture within Founders Factory and externally. Help the founder to build a team and set them up for success post Studio program. You will be part of the decision making at the Investment Committee.

Previous experience:

Strong product background with a hands-on approach. You've synced a team, shaped a product and shipped it out as well! You have co-founded or led the product team at an early stage startup. Expertise in driving product-driven companies forward with a strong business and financial acumen as well as a deep understanding of business fundamentals. Ability to work with strategic investors and C-level executives. Hiring and retaining a world class team. Have a deep networks of founders, venture capital firms and startup talent.

Qualities you need to be successful in this role:

Have an ability to connect, emphasise and collaborate with top tier founder talent. Deals comfortably with the uncertainty of change and complex problems, effectively handles risk and can make a decision with incomplete information. Operates effectively, is calm under pressure and productive with multiple plates spinning or when the future is unclear. Have a strong bias for action and persists in accomplishing objectives despite setbacks. Has an approach to management that involves trusting other people, removing roadblocks. Able to understand the perspective of others and evaluate their own thinking whilst looking for feedback and continuously improve. Ability to work across geographies, time zones and multi-functional teams.

📈 Benefits

In addition to a competitive salary, you’ll also receive shares in the Founders Factory global portfolio. 

We provide all the excitement and freedom of an early stage startup but with the stability and resources of a large organisation. This is a rare chance to contribute towards the success of impactful ventures through hiring the right people, and to springboard your career or entrepreneurial ambitions. 

Share in our ventures’ success: Meaningful equity participation in the company, via an option scheme with market-standard 4 year vesting (with a 12 month cliff)

Growth: Work with and meet exceptional talent. Learn faster than you ever have before. Access our large network of investors and customers. Grow your career like never before. We have many growth opportunities from taking a founder route in our studio, to cross functional movement to vertical growth in your domain, to global remit & expansion. It’s all there for the taking. 

Autonomy: Freedom to execute and build businesses, not just products. We encourage risk taking here.

Knowledge sharing: Both internally and from our speaker series with talks from world-class founders within our network and our Monthly Show & Tell events and bi-annual away days

Flexible working - the specifics to be decided by you and manager, but we also offer 5 weeks of remote working globally

Time Off: 25 days annually plus bank holidays

Health and Wellness: Statutory Pension Contribution and/or Private medical insurance with Vitality

Family Support: Nursery salary sacrifice scheme with EnjoyBenefits

Transport: EV salary sacrifice scheme with Elmo and Cycle to work scheme with CycleScheme

Learning and Development: £200 learning benefit per year (available after your probationary period)

Tools and (Home) Office Setup: Equipment for productive working at the office and at home-base (Macbook, headphones, screen etc.)

Founders Factory is a proud Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where people can authentically be themselves and are free to challenge, take risks and think creatively. 

We recruit, develop, compensate and promote our team members based on merit. We know how important it is not only to include, but to actively seek out diversity of thought and experiences. We want to hear from you regardless of your race, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, status, or any other applicable legally protected characteristics.

The requirements shared in our job descriptions are guidelines. If your skills are transferable and you are in the ballpark with the number of years of experience we are looking for, please apply and we will consider you for the role.