SaaS Business Development Leader

SaaS Business Development Leader

Three years of technology development. A commercial business to build.

Chew is hiring the first dedicated commercial leader for a technology platform we have spent three years building behind the scenes. You will help take it to market, win customers and build a business that serves individual subscribers, aspiring founders and the biggest CPG companies in the world.

We believe this technology can change how consumer products are created. An exceptional technical team has put years into that ambition. We now need the commercial leader who can help turn it into paid adoption and lasting customer value.

You will work directly with Chew’s founder and technology team. This is a senior, hands-on role: you will build the commercial approach and personally sell. You need to be comfortable deciding where to start, learning quickly and taking responsibility for the results.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Chew brings culinary excellence, bold science and consumer obsession to consumer product innovation. Our expansion into technology creates an opportunity to put that ambition to work in a new way.

Our potential customers have very different needs and buying behaviours. An individual exploring their first product needs a clear reason to subscribe and an accessible path to value. An enterprise needs a compelling business case, internal champions and confidence that the technology can deliver against its requirements.

Your job is to build the right approach for each, decide which opportunities to pursue first and turn early learning into repeatable growth.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Build and execute the go-to-market strategy.

Identify priority customer segments, their most important problems and the reasons they would pay to solve them. Develop positioning, acquisition channels and a practical commercial plan. Make clear choices about what to pursue first, what to test and where to concentrate our resources.

• Grow the individual subscription business.

Build and test ways to attract prospective users, convert interest into paid subscriptions and help customers reach meaningful value. Work with the technology team on onboarding, activation, conversion and retention. Understand which customers stay, why they stay and what it costs to acquire them.

• Develop and close enterprise opportunities.

Own prospecting, discovery, demonstrations, qualification, proposals, negotiation and closing. Build relationships with users, decision-makers and internal champions. Understand enterprise buying processes, including procurement and technical review, and coordinate with the relevant colleagues to move opportunities forward.

• Turn pilots into clear commercial decisions.

Where a pilot is appropriate, establish its purpose, scope, success criteria, decision-makers and next commercial step. Keep the customer and our team aligned on what must be demonstrated. Use the results to support an informed buying decision and identify opportunities to expand successful relationships.

• Shape pricing and packaging.

Work with the founder and technology team to develop offers that reflect customer value, willingness to pay and the economics of the business. Test and refine subscription plans and enterprise packages. Understand the implications of discounts, contract terms and service commitments before making promises.

• Make the technology understandable and compelling.

Translate complex capabilities into clear customer outcomes. Develop messaging, demonstrations, proposals and sales materials that help people understand what the product can do for them. Represent its capabilities accurately and build credibility through a strong understanding of both the technology and the customer’s work.

• Build partnerships that create customers and value.

Identify distribution, referral and strategic partners. Assess the commercial logic, agree expectations and develop relationships with measurable outcomes. Decide where partnerships can improve our ability to reach and serve customers.

• Bring customer learning into product decisions.

Translate recurring customer needs, objections and adoption barriers into prioritised feedback for the technology team. Distinguish an individual request from a broader market need. Help identify improvements that could unlock greater customer value and commercial opportunity.

• Manage pipeline and performance.

Build a useful CRM, clear pipeline stages, consistent follow-up and realistic forecasting. Track the measures that matter: paid conversion, recurring revenue, acquisition cost, retention, expansion and the progress of qualified enterprise opportunities. Use evidence to explain what is working, what is changing and where we should act.

• Build the capacity to grow.

Document what works so others can use it. Develop practical sales processes, customer insights and commercial playbooks. Recommend when specialist support or additional hires would create value, and help define those needs. Build an approach that becomes increasingly repeatable as the business develops.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

In the first 90 days, we expect you to:

• Develop a detailed understanding of the product, its current capabilities, existing customer evidence and commercial readiness.

• Establish a clear initial customer focus and test our positioning through direct conversations with prospective users and buyers.

• Put a practical commercial plan into action, including acquisition experiments, qualified enterprise opportunities and clear next steps toward paid adoption.

• Establish CRM and reporting practices that give us an honest view of demand, pipeline and progress.

• Agree measurable revenue, acquisition and retention priorities with the founder, grounded in product readiness, buying cycles and available resources.

As the business develops, success means:

• Customers understand the value, choose to pay and have reasons to continue using the platform.

• Individual subscription growth becomes more repeatable, with an improving understanding of conversion, retention and acquisition economics.

• Enterprise opportunities move through a disciplined buying process into paid agreements and expansion where customer value supports it.

• We can explain where growth is coming from, what it costs and what is needed to sustain it.

We will judge progress through customer outcomes, revenue and the quality of the business being built. You will help set the targets and be accountable for performance against them.

QUALIFICATIONS

We are looking for evidence of the following:

• Relevant experience building and growing SaaS or subscription software businesses, including work at an early stage when the commercial approach was still being established.

• Personal ownership of commercial results. You can explain what you built, who bought it, how the business grew and exactly what you contributed.

• Experience across individual or self-service subscription acquisition and enterprise sales. You understand the different buying decisions, economics and approaches required, and can provide credible examples of your work.

• The ability to develop strategy and execute it yourself. You are comfortable moving from customer research and prioritisation into outreach, demonstrations, proposals, negotiations and follow-up.

• Strong commercial judgement and numerical fluency. You can assess pipeline quality, conversion, recurring revenue, retention and acquisition economics, and use those insights to make decisions.

• The technical curiosity to learn a complex product, ask useful questions and work effectively with engineers and product specialists. You know when to bring technical colleagues into a conversation.

• Clear communication and strong listening skills. You can make a complicated proposition understandable, build trust and adapt your approach to the person and organisation in front of you.

• Initiative, adaptability and follow-through. You can work through uncertainty, recognise when an approach needs to change and learn fast enough to make the next attempt better.

• Integrity in how you represent your experience, our product and the commitments we make to customers.

Experience in CPG, food, product innovation or related industries would be valuable. So would building commercial partnerships or serving as an early commercial hire. We place the greatest weight on relevant work you can demonstrate and the judgement you bring to the opportunity.

HOW WE WORK

We are ambitious, curious and comfortable with spirited debate. We want you to challenge our assumptions, including the founder’s, and be equally willing to examine your own.

You should expect room to make decisions, direct collaboration with the founder and technology team, honest feedback and a shared effort to resolve obstacles.

We value people who are precise about what they know, open about what they need to learn and generous with the people helping them succeed. There is plenty for all of us to learn.

HOW TO APPLY

Apply through LinkedIn with your résumé and a short note covering:

• A SaaS or subscription business you helped build, and the stage it was at when you joined.

• What you personally owned, built and sold.

• The results, including relevant revenue, customer adoption or retention outcomes and the timeframe.

• A difficult commercial problem, what you learned and what you would do differently.

• Why this opportunity interests you.

Keep it specific. Non-confidential examples and approximate ranges are welcome where exact figures cannot be shared. Please distinguish your contribution from the work of the wider team.

No recruiters, please.

If you take pride in helping customers do something they could not do before, and have the experience to build the business around that value, we would like to hear from you.