Here’s the problem:
- Brands want to do influencer marketing—they know it’s effective—but are held back by how manual, laborious, and difficult it is to scale.
- Creators want to be sponsored so they can keep creating content for their audiences, but have trouble getting sponsored by the right brand. As a result, brands keep pumping money through less efficient marketing channels, while talented creators have trouble earning an income and eventually give up.
1stCollab (YC W23) is an AI-powered influencer marketing platform, built by the team that helped scale Pinterest. We’ve reinvented the process of influencer marketing, so that any marketer can now do in a few hours what it used to take a team of influencer marketers weeks to do. Every week, we help hundreds of creators find sponsorships with some of the world’s most innovative brands, such as Notion, Character AI, and Framer. We’re a seed stage, venture-backed company with innovative technology looking to transform how brands advertise and grow users.
Our brand retention rate is nearly 100%—we literally have 10x more demand than we’re able to scale and keep up with—and creators we work with are tremendously happy. Check out our website to see some videos made for us by the thousands of creators we've already worked with!
Location: In-person, San Francisco (201 Spear St.)
Employment Type: Full-Time
About 1stCollab
1stCollab (YC W23) is an AI-powered influencer marketing platform founded by a team with extensive experience scaling companies like Pinterest. We’re revolutionizing influencer marketing, enabling marketers to accomplish in hours what previously took teams months. Each week, we connect thousands of creators with top brands like Notion, Character AI, and Quora. Backed by Y Combinator and other world-class investors, we’re developing cutting-edge technology to transform how brands advertise and acquire users.
About the role
We’re hiring our first Customer Success Manager to help build the leading advertising and marketing platform for brands and creators. For creators, we aim to be the ultimate platform for growing creative careers—managing the business side so creators can focus on what they do best. For brands, our vision goes beyond traditional ad platforms: we believe that by making advertising as intuitive as a consumer product, we can redefine the ad experience.
In this role, you’ll work directly with the CEO to ensure brands achieve measurable growth with 1stCollab. Your responsibilities will include onboarding brands, guiding them through best practices, analyzing campaign performance, and sharing valuable insights from 1stCollab and the broader industry. Success in this role means our brands are delighted with their results.
As the first CSM, you’ll have the opportunity to shape and lead a growing Customer Success and Account Management team. At a fast-paced startup redefining how brands market themselves, you’ll be positioned to help transform the marketing industry.
Your responsibilities
- Brand Retention: Ensure every brand has a positive experience on 1stCollab and continues to partner with us.
- Onboarding & Education: Guide brands through setup and best practices on 1stCollab, providing support throughout the campaign process.
- Developing Winning Strategies: Analyze what’s working for brands on 1stCollab and across the marketing industry, and use these insights to empower brands with effective strategies.
- Brand Health Measurement: Monitor and report on brand performance metrics.
- Customer Advocacy: Act as the voice of brands within 1stCollab, sharing success stories and challenges with the team. Collaborate with the product team to develop solutions for existing challenges.
- Team Building: Help establish and expand the Customer Success and Account Management functions at 1stCollab.
What we’re looking for
- Experience: X+ years in Customer Success, Account Management, or a related role.
- Customer Obsession: We’re committed to delivering exceptional experiences for both brands and creators. We’re looking for a CSM who shares this commitment and goes above and beyond to ensure brands have outstanding experiences on 1stCollab.
- Action-Oriented: As a startup, we prioritize getting things done. We don’t spend our days in meetings and talking about work. We prioritize roll up our sleeves and getting stuff done.
- Strong Communication: Ability to navigate ambiguity, articulate decisions, and communicate effectively with teammates and external brand partners.
- Growth Mindset: You welcome feedback and are eager to learn, iterate, and improve.
- Fast Learner: You’ll be working with unique tools and processes that don’t exist elsewhere. We need someone who can quickly understand 1stCollab’s operations and develop ways to educate brands about our platform.
Additional preferred qualifications
- Prior experience at an early-stage startup is highly preferred.
- Experience with digital ad products or creator economy products is a plus.
Overview
Thank you for your interest in the 1stCollab interview process for our Customer Success Manager (CSM) role! Our goal is to assess mutual fit—we want to ensure not only that you’re a great fit for the role, but also that you feel confident 1stCollab is the right career choice for you. Below is a summary of our interview process. If you have any questions, feel free to email [email protected].
Phone Screen (45 minutes with the CEO)
In this first step, we’ll get to know you better. We’ll ask about your background, your interest in the role, and relevant experience as it relates to the position and our company. Be prepared to discuss why you’re excited about this opportunity and why you’re a good fit for the CSM role, influencer marketing, and/or working at a startup.
Next, we’ll go through a few technical case studies. This portion is less about finding the perfect solution and more about evaluating your problem-solving skills. We encourage candidates to ask plenty of questions and explore multiple approaches to solving each challenge. If you’re not familiar with influencer marketing, it may be helpful to research the basics of how it works from a brand/advertiser perspective before the interview.
Finally, we’ll reserve time at the end of the interview for any questions you may have.
In-Person Interview & Lunch (2 hours with the CEO and the 1stCollab team)
The on-site interview will start with an open Q&A session where you can ask any questions you have. We’ll then dive into case studies specific to 1stCollab. These case studies are designed to simulate the type of work and problem-solving you’ll encounter in the role. As in the previous round, we’re less concerned with “right answers” and more focused on how you ask questions, gather context, and develop thoughtful solutions.
After the interview, we’ll head out for lunch as a team! This informal setting provides an opportunity for you to learn more about the team and for the team to get to know you.
Contractor Trial (2 weeks)
The final stage is optional but preferred. During this trial period, you’ll work as a full-time contractor, with pay equivalent to that of a full-time hire. You’ll take ownership of a project that closely mirrors the responsibilities of a CSM at 1stCollab. This step allows both of us to experience what it would be like to work together before making a long-term commitment.
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