Founders Factory was launched in 2015 with a mission to power founders to go further, faster.
To date we have built more than 60 startups and invested in a further 200 across offices in London, Johannesburg and New York.
FF has a team of over 100 full-time operators and its portfolio has raised more than $600m in capital.
Our latest program will be Fintech-focused and based in Milan.
We have partnered with some of the top corporations in the Milan ecosystem and a coalition of strategic partners.
Together we are launching the ultimate platform for founders in Milan to find product-market-fit and scale their technologies with us.
The Milan program will be focused on our venture studio and will develop a portfolio of over 10 startups over the next 5 years across a broad range of areas including wealth management, insurance, consumer banking, payments, web3.
**What you'll do**:
- As we expand into Milan, bringing on a Studio Lead is fundamental.
You'll be one of our first hires in this new location and help to establish our new office.
You will have the unique opportunity to work as the co-founder to our EIR's across many of our studio ventures.
This role will need to be able to inspire top founders to work for them whilst being able to deal with immense uncertainty and solve diverse problems.
Our goal is for Founders Factory Milan to be the best platform for founders to start and grow their startups.
We are looking for someone who shares that ambition and has the passion and expertise to achieve it.
**As the Studio Lead, your role will be**:
- You will lead our cross-functional team for each studio venture and act as the key stakeholder for the founders of our studio businesses.
It will be up to you to turn ambiguous ideas into a product MVP within 6 months, validating your decisions commercially along the way, so that a founding team can grow from that MVP into a fully-fledged business.
- You will be the link between the founder and FF and spend the majority of your time working on or with our studio ventures.
You will do your best to unlock their unfair advantage through our network.
- You will work with our partners & venture design team to determine the strategic direction and investment decisions ensuring that we are building a strong and valuable portfolio as well as the exceptional delivery of our program.
**In your day-to-day, you may find yourself doing the following**:
- Lead our cross-functional squads in creating the different product strategies and helping bring the MVPs to life by partnering with the founder, leading a team of functional experts and providing hands-on support where needed.
- Collaborate with founders to define product roadmaps against KPIs and product goals, responsible for ensuring all work is broken down into clear requirements for the various team members working on a given project.
- Work with our global team of partners and functional experts to ensure that we are providing the best possible support to founders and building amazing products.
- Support our Venture Design team on product discovery research (qualitative and quantitative data) as well as work on identifying riskiest hypothesis and any key work streams that will support founder hiring.
- Consolidate, prioritise and action feedback from funding partners, commercial and product teams.
- Hire world class founders and/or founding team members for studio projects.
- Forecast studio budget with founders.
Keep track of internal spend, approve use of funds and ensure resources and costs are managed effectively.
You will be entrepreneurial and together with the founder help drive the business forward while keeping it under prudent control.
- You will be closely engaged with all the workings of the new venture and be answerable for its actions.
Together with the founders you will help to develop a big vision & mission and guide changes in direction where necessary.
**Previous experience**:
- Been part of the founding team of an early stage startup.
- Hiring and retaining a world class team.
- Product or technical experience taking an early stage business forward.
- Demonstrated financial acumen and deep understanding of business fundamentals.
- Ability to work with strategic investors and C-level executives.
- Deep networks of founders, venture capital firms and startup talent.
**Qualities you need to be successful in this role**:
- Has an ability to connect, emphasise and collaborate with top tier founder talent.
- Deals comfortably with the uncertainty of change and complex problems, effectively handles risk and can make a decision with incomplete information.
- Operates effectively, is calm under pressure and productive with multiple plates spinning or when the future is unclear.
- Have a strong bias for action and persists in accomplishing objectives despite setbacks.
- Has an approach to management that involves trusting other people, removing roadblocks.
- Able to understand the perspective of others