Founding Growth Lead (Contract-to-Hire)

About Us:a0.dev is an AI platform that turns app ideas into real, revenue-generating mobile apps. Users enter their idea and our AI designs, codes, tests, and ships it to the App Store, handling everything from infrastructure to deployment in one place. We were one of the first AI mobile app builders in the market and have helped over 300k people bring their ideas to life. We're a small, well-funded, in-person team in San Francisco backed by Y Combinator and other top investors. We believe the future is one where anyone can invest in their ideas regardless of technical experience, and we're building a platform that helps people not just create apps, but launch them, market them, monetize them, and turn their ideas into real businesses that reach millions of users.The Role:We're looking for a Founding Growth Lead to own how a0.dev acquires, converts, and retains users as we launch our next product and scale from hundreds of thousands of users to tens of millions. You'll work directly with the founders to find the channels and loops that can carry us to scale, and to turn early traction into a repeatable growth engine.This is a full-funnel role. You'll cast a wide net, run experiments across paid, lifecycle, and the product itself, and go deep on whatever shows signal. Our next product is AI-native, and the user-facing AI is one of the most interesting growth surfaces we have; how it converts, how it gets users to invite their friends, and how it earns money will be important to your role. You'll work with the founders to shape what that AI says and does based on what you're learning. This is a 90-day contract-to-hire role with a clear path to a full-time founding team seat for the right person. Successful contractors transition into full-time founding team roles with salary and back-dated equity. We'll align on success metrics in your first week.Who You Are:High agency, you figure things out and don't wait for instructionsYou have an eye for good content and understand why it convertsA doer, you actually ship the experiments and the changesComfortable with ambiguity and moving fast without a playbookStrong written communicatorUse AI tools aggressively to move faster than what would normally be possibleFun to work with, brings good vibesWhat You'll Do:Bring new users to the platform by finding and scaling the channels that workRun paid acquisition across Meta, TikTok, Google, and any new channel that makes sensePartner with the Brand and Content Lead on creative productionDrive SEO and AI search visibility through content, programmatic pages, and how we show up in both Google and AI assistantsOptimize landing pages, signup flow, and onboarding conversionBuild lifecycle, retention, and re-engagement programs (email, push, in-app)Design virality and referral loops, both inside the product and outside itAnalyze user behavior and conversations, find where we lose people and where we could earn more, and influence changes to the AI's prompts and capabilities with the engineering teamRun experiments across the funnel: hypothesis, test, ship, learn, repeatOwn attribution, dashboards, and the metrics we run the business onRequirements:2+ years driving growth at a consumer or product-led companyA track record of creative experiments and original thinking about acquisitionHands-on experience running paid ads campaigns, with a point of view on what creative works and whyStrong analytical chops, comfortable with attribution, cohorts, and modeling in spreadsheets or SQLLives in or willing to re-locate to SFBonus Points:Experience working on a consumer AI productExperience with viral consumer apps, creator tools, or social productsExperience with SEO at a consumer or product-led companyYou've made ad creative yourselfYou've built or grown something on your own, even if it's smallWhy Join Us:Competitive pay and benefitsMeals covered when you're in the office (lunch daily, dinner when you're working late)Work directly with the founders with full transparency and influence over how the business operatesBuild and own the growth engine instead of inheriting oneReal responsibility from day one at a fast-growing YC companyPath to convert from a 90-day contract to a full-time founding team role with salary and equityJ-18808-Ljbffr