Heron Data · New York
Sales & BusinessGTM & SalesFullTimeposted 4w ago
The title says Account Executive. The job, as one of our AEs puts it, is closer to a mini-GM: you own a book of business, set your own commercials, and lead a cross-functional team to get deals closed and customers live.
Hear Freddie - one of our top Sellers - talk about selling at Heron here.
Huge untapped revenue potential: Heron is growing quickly and sales is still catching up to the potential of our product. We serve over 190 customers but that is still a tiny share of the market. You'll take real territory from day one and share in our growth via uncapped commission and equity.
Run your own book like a mini-GM: you'll own a book of accounts. We have playbooks for what works, but pricing and deal structure are yours to negotiate. Our deals move fast - you are typically selling to C-level; if you get a kick out of quick negotiations, you'll get the adrenaline without being the stereotypical 'pushy salesperson'.
The seat with the upside: as AI eats more software, distribution matters more, not less - and sales, done well, is usually the highest-paid job at any company. If you've been in a post-sales or deployment seat doing most of the stakeholder and technical work while someone else took home the commission, you already know how deals actually get done. Here, the upside is yours.
A team of outliers, not a sales mill: sales at Heron started with one of our founders (Jamie) personally closing dozens of customers. The sellers we've hired since came from strategy consulting, deployment, Product, and other non-traditional sales roles. They learned alternative finance fast and now close our largest deals. We're not hiring for a rolodex. And if you're weighing a career change into sales: make it here. You'll be working with people who made the same jump, the only part we can't supply is that you want to do it.
Personal growth opportunities: sales is the fastest route up at most companies. Depending on your ambitions, this role could develop into closing very large and complex deals, sales leadership, or owning go-to-market for one of our newer markets. And if you want to start your own company one day, running deals with product and engineering at your back is - we think - the best way to learn how to do it.
An environment where you can do your best work: we promote an outcome-focused, low-bureaucracy work environment with an emphasis on impact. We're ~60 people across New York and London, still lean, scrappy and committed to our customers. The ideal candidate will value and thrive in this type of environment.
Note: this is a sales role, so if you're applying, don't just send us your CV. Get creative and sell us on you!
Full sales cycle: as an Account Executive, you will handle the full sales cycle, including prospecting for and qualifying leads, and moving those leads through to close. You'll use a mix of high-volume outbound and more specific, account-based techniques.
Direct a cross-functional deal team: when you're working a large deal at Heron, you're effectively directing product, engineering and deployment around your customer. You'll interact with many prospects every day, build deep relationships with customers as they become users, and have a front-row seat and real input into what we build next.
Be present with our customers: working out of our New York office in Hudson Square, you'll be traveling regularly across the US to conferences, industry events and customer sites to ensure we are top of mind for decision makers in our customers. Our top sellers spend around 5 days a month in person with customers.
We care more about slope than resume keywords. Our ideal hire will have:
A track record of excellence in a competitive, client-facing field: that might be 3+ years of B2B sales with strong quota attainment. It might equally be top-bucket performance in consulting, a post-sales or deployment seat at a technical company where you carried the real work of deals, or founding a company. Some of our best sellers had never carried a quota before Heron.
Evidence you can sell: if you've carried a number, show us the attainment. If you haven't, show us persuasion some other way: clients won, money raised, a side business built - or simply the application you send us (see the note above).
Product and people minded: you know how to enter an unfamiliar room, cut through the noise, and find where the value is - and you're comfortable selling a technical product (e.g. that uses APIs, AI/LLMs). You'll need to be credible with a head of underwriting and a CTO in the same meeting.
Entrepreneurial spirit: an ownership mindset, results-driven and the ability to move quickly.
Above all else, we value people who want to make an impact in their work. Here are some of the behaviours that we expect the ideal candidate will exhibit:
Be scrappy and creative: when faced with an obstacle, you will either overcome it by pure determination, or find an unusual approach to navigate it.
Be persistent: you may not always find the right answer or person immediately, but you're motivated to keep on trying until you do so. You'll go the extra mile - including showing up at their office - if that's what it takes.
Be metrics-driven: you thrive on meeting and smashing through your targets, and are motivated by having your impact on the business measured and visible.
Excited to work in a fast-paced, high-growth, but kind team-based environment: we aim to move quickly and decisively, but together. You'll be a great team player, and do what it takes for the team to succeed. You value diversity and inclusion in the workplace and understand best practices for building products and a business as part of a team.
Competitive compensation, including equity and uncapped commission. Please note that advertised salary is the expected OTE of base + commission, but we do not cap commission and you'll earn commission on every deal you work on.
Based full-time and in-person in our NYC office with frequent travel to customers (across the country) and roughly annual Company Offsites.
Your choice of top-of-the-line equipment to fit out your desk in our office
Competitive benefits package: health, dental, vision with partial coverage for dependents; 401K; uncapped PTO; parental leave
Free on-demand access to therapy via Spill
Weekly company lunches and breakfasts
Applicants from any background and gender are welcome and we have a zero tolerance policy on discrimination
1 or 2 initial 'get to know you' conversations
Take-home challenge - a task which roughly represents the work we would expect from you
Team interviews - 2-3 hours in-person, mix of skills-based and behavioural interviews
References
We are Heron Data, a Series A stage company based in New York and London.
At Heron, we use the latest advances in AI and LLMs to eliminate the underwriting tax on small businesses and help SMBs get access to financial services. Our software handles emails, analyzes attachments, and takes actions like updating CRMs or requesting more info to execute workflows end-to-end for our customers. We serve a range of businesses including some of the world's largest fintechs, banks and other specialty finance companies, commercial insurers, and more.
Our largest product automates underwriting for small business lenders and other specialty finance companies. We eliminate cumbersome manual processes and enable our customers to provide their services with much greater speed, precision, and fairness.
We are a rapidly growing company with over 190 customers in financial services and beyond who trust us to be embedded in critical processes - without us, their businesses stop. We analyze hundreds of thousands of documents a day, including over 20 million individual bank transactions daily for our customers. We continue to grow into more segments and workflows: further into lending, banking, insurance. And we think there's much more we can do!
We are a lean, scrappy and committed team with a flat structure and collaborative culture. Our team brings together a wealth of experience from gFreat tech companies including Facebook, Spotify, Revolut and many other startups from around the world.
With team members from five different continents, we embrace multiculturalism and diversity. From company events to everyday interactions, we make sure everyone feels welcome and accommodate all cultural and dietary requirements.
Since our launch in September 2020, at the end of the S20 batch, we've experienced a lot of growth! Today, we serve over 190 customers and $13M in ARR. Read more about our mission here