Business Development Lead

TL;DR: Our Business Development team is growing quickly, and we’re hiring a BDR Leader to help build the pipeline engine that fuels Listen Labs’ next phase of growth.

Reporting to the VP of Revenue, you’ll be responsible for coaching a team of highly driven BDRs across outbound, warm signal follow-up, conference motions, and relationship-driven pipeline creation. You’ll work directly with founders, Growth, AEs, and Product Marketing to turn what’s working today into repeatable plays, operating rhythms, and a high-performance team culture.

Background

Listen Labs is an AI-powered research platform that helps teams uncover insights from customer interviews in hours — not months. We help customers analyze conversations, surface themes, and make faster, smarter product decisions.

Company highlights — entirely product-led:

• World-Class Team: Founded by serial entrepreneurs (previous AI exit), former co-founders, and talent from Jane Street, Twitter, Stripe, Affirm, Bain, Goldman Sachs, and many more Sequoia-backed startups (plus IOI/ICPC backgrounds).

• Hypergrowth: We’re a 30-person team backed by Sequoia, growing from $0 to a $10M run-rate in under a year. We move fast, care deeply about craft, and love working with people who take ownership.

• Traction: Rapid growth across segments with enterprise wins at Google, Microsoft, Nestlé, and P&G.

• Performance: Industry-leading win rate driven by a highly differentiated product.

• Market Validation: Consistently winning customers across all segments with over six-figure lands that lead to quick expansions.

• Viral Product: Interviews are shared with tens of thousands of viewers, fueling PLG, organic expansion, and daily inbound from Fortune 500s.

What You’ll Do

Team Leadership & Coaching

• Manage and develop a team of BDRs across outbound, warm signal follow-up, conference motions, and early qualification

• Run weekly team cadences around account prioritization, pipeline reviews, messaging refinement, and conversion performance

• Coach reps on cold calling, personalization, objection handling, multi-threading, and live event networking

• Build a high-accountability culture centered on speed, craft, experimentation, and consistent execution

Playbooks, Systems & Process

• Build and operationalize repeatable outbound plays across a variety of channels

• Create clear workflows for pre-event prep, post-event follow-up, call blocks, and account queue ownership

• Partner with Growth and Product Marketing to turn campaigns, content, and market moments into BDR-ready plays

• Improve tooling, routing, dashboards, and prioritization systems that help the team focus on the highest-leverage accounts

Pipeline Performance & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Own team performance across meetings sourced, qualified pipeline, conversion rates, and play-level effectiveness

• Work closely with AEs on account coverage, multi-threading, and strategic account penetration

• Partner with founders, Growth, PMM, and Product to bring field learnings back into messaging and GTM strategy

• Help shape how Listen shows up in the market through conferences, dinners, executive outreach, and creative outbound

Who You Are

• Player-coach mentality: You love developing reps, but you’re still close enough to the work to improve messaging, jump into deal strategy, and refine account plays

• Systems-oriented: You know how to turn ambiguity into process, dashboards, and repeatable team habits

• Creative and resourceful: You don’t default to generic BDR sequences. You think in plays, signals, and real reasons to reach out

• High standards: You care deeply about rep development, message quality, and pipeline outcomes

• Fast-moving: You thrive in ambiguous startup environments where the motion is evolving in real time

• Cross-functional: You work well with founders, Growth, PMM, and Sales leadership to align on priorities and raise the team’s ceiling

Requirements

• 2+ years of experience in BDR/SDR leadership, outbound team management, or pipeline generation

• Experience building outbound processes, coaching frameworks, and operating cadences from scratch

• Comfortable working across cold outbound, warm signal follow-up, and event-driven pipeline motions

• Strong analytical skills and comfort using CRM + outbound tooling to manage performance

• SF/NYC based and available to be in office as we are 5-days a week

Life at Listen Labs

• Competitive Compensation: We’re backed by world-class investors, including Sequoia Capital, Conviction, AI Grant, and Pear VC, and offer competitive compensation packages with meaningful equity ownership.

  • Over $30B in market cap has been created in adjacent industries (Medallia, AlphaSense, GLG, Ipsos, Kantar). Our Sequoia partner, Bryan Schreier, was the first investor in Qualtrics—a $12B company tackling similar problems to ours.

• Benefits that Support You: Comprehensive healthcare and dental coverage, flexible time off to recharge, and an environment that values balance and trust.

• Room to Grow: As an early member of the team, you’ll have the opportunity to take on new responsibilities, shape processes from scratch, and grow alongside the company. We value people who want to stretch beyond their role and build something lasting.