Join the Pioneer team

Pioneer's mission is to support founders everywhere earlier than anyone else on the planet. We make $20k investments, put our companies through a 3-month remote accelerator program, fly them out to San Francisco to spend a month together, and much more.

In our 4 years since launching, we've funded 300+ founders from 50+ countries who’ve gone on to raise over $200M. We’re almost always the first dollar invested in our founders; most haven’t even incorporated. Our companies have gone on to raise from Sequoia, a16z, Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Village Global, and many more VCs & angels.

We're a small team of 7 who are optimistic we can find brilliance in places the world has overlooked.

One of our Pioneer Meals, including both team members and Pioneers, in 7 countries.
our challenges

Pioneer isn't just an accelerator—it's a generator. We want to motivate people to become the best versions of themselves, to take their crazy ideas more seriously, and to make betting on themselves less daunting. If we do what we've set out to, we'll not just fund successful startups that might not have otherwise worked out—we'll fund ones that wouldn't have existed at all.

We're constantly asking ourselves:

  • How do you reach ambitious outsiders who aren't in any mainstream communities?
  • How do you motivate people to take the leap to work on their own projects, and keep making progress?
  • How do you correctly identify impressive progress at scale?
  • What can we do to make our Pioneers as successful as possible?

If these problems sound interesting to you, reach out: jobs@pioneer.app.

Working at Pioneer

We value autonomy over consensus, speed over correctness, and being different & experimental. If given the choice between a known good and a project that has a small chance of being wildly successful, we'll pick the latter. We're data-driven on our high-level numbers, but trust our instincts. We care more about output than setting rules.

The first Pioneer Summit, when we flew 25 Pioneers to San Francisco, and a recent park hangout. We're building a city on the Internet—but it's tough to completely replace in-person bonding!

Roles

Community & content (San Francisco)

We’re looking for a community manager to support our founders in-person in SF, and online in 50+ countries. You’ll also spend a small portion of your time on content.

A typical week might include…

  • Meeting Pioneers who are new to the city
  • Occasionally hosting an IRL event with a small group of founders
  • Helping run our monthlong Summit (a lightly scheduled trip to SF for Pioneers)
  • Organizing online events for Pioneers
  • Engaging our community in discussions on Slack
  • Writing content for our blog
  • Publishing a higher quality, denser Codex
  • Whatever else you think will help create a vibrant, supportive community!

There’s a lot of community manager roles out there; this one might be different from what you typically see. Our IRL events are invite-only & composed primarily of Pioneers, perhaps with a small proportion of external founders. You’ll never put “networking” in an event description, and we’re not here to organize happy hours. We expect founders (even introverted ones!) to come to events—whether physical or online—with a sense of purpose, and to leave feeling productive & motivated.

You might be a fit if you:

  • Generally consider yourself an extrovert & enjoy making new friends.
  • Love talking to, learning from, and helping new founders.
  • Are full of energy & curiosity—and people are energized by talking to you.
  • Have stellar attention to detail. You take pride in writing well, planning for every edge case, and executing flawlessly.
  • Have founded your own startup, have worked for 1+ years on a team of 10 or fewer people, or otherwise have a strong demonstrated passion for startups.
  • Are comfortable with change and ambiguity, and thrive working autonomously.

These aren’t strict requirements. If you’re interested, email jobs+community@pioneer.app. Include your resume or LinkedIn and a few sentences about who you are & why you’d thrive in the role.

Venture analyst (part-time remote)

We’re looking for a part-time venture analyst who’s excited to help us find the next 250 founders we’ll invest in. We're flexible on the exact commitment, but aiming for 5-10 hours/week. This is an excellent role for someone who's worked full-time in startups and is looking for experience in venture.

A typical week might include…

  • Meeting founders and discussing investment decisions.
  • Writing thoughtful cold emails to founders.
  • Reviewing applications (writing feedback, picking the most compelling ones, etc.)
  • Helping the team run our latest growth experiments.

You’ll build a strong sense of what makes a successful early-stage company and learn how to identify & attract great founders.

Though we resemble a venture firm, we view ourselves as a startup whose goal is to support founders earlier than anyone else on the planet. We spend all of our time thinking about product, growth, data science, and making our users as successful as possible. If we do our jobs right, we’ll help create great founders, not just find them.

You might be a fit if you:

  • Have experimented with building your own products/companies, have worked at a company of 10 or fewer people, or otherwise have a strong demonstrated passion for startups.
  • Understand the fundamentals of early-stage investing (venture experience helpful but not required).
  • Are energized by talking to, learning from, and helping early founders.
  • Have stellar attention to detail.
  • Thrive working autonomously.

These aren’t strict requirements. If you’re interested, email jobs+venture@pioneer.app. Include your resume or LinkedIn and a few sentences about who you are & why you’d thrive in the role.