Marketing Manager
19 hours ago
New York
Founding Marketing Manager New York, NY $180K - $220K Base Shields Group Search is proud to partner with a venture-backed construction tech company on a Founding Marketing Manager search. Our client is building an AI-powered estimating and takeoff platform purpose-built for HVAC, electrical, and plumbing rep firms and distributors. Using proprietary computer vision, their platform reads architectural blueprints, identifies every piece of mechanical equipment, and generates accurate bills of material in minutes — work that currently takes skilled estimators hours or days with highlighters, rulers, and legacy desktop tools. They recently closed a $14M Series A and are seeing extremely strong market validation. Their close rate is 82% when prospects know who they are, and their 27-day sales cycle is fast for enterprise software. The product is working. Now they need the market to know it exists. HVAC distribution is a $60B-$76B market in the U.S., concentrated among roughly 2,000-2,500 distributor firms and 800-1,200 rep firms. Their core ICP — companies between $20M and $250M in revenue — represents approximately 145-275 accounts today, scaling into thousands as they expand into adjacent trades. This is a finite, nameable market where everyone knows everyone and word-of-mouth travels fast. The Opportunity This is a demand-creation role, not a demand-capture optimization role. Most future customers do not know to search for this product because they have never imagined that AI could read their blueprints. When they do see it, the reaction is immediate — but getting the product in front of the right 275 people requires a fundamentally different playbook than running paid search against high-volume keywords. The company is at a classic “crossing the chasm” moment: early adopters love the product, and the job now is to make the pragmatist majority feel that this is the safe, obvious, built-for-them choice. The Founding Marketing Manager will own this transition. What You’ll Own • Pipeline target and marketing-sourced revenue, • You will carry a pipeline number and be accountable for delivering qualified opportunities to the sales team. You’ll define the marketing-sourced vs. marketing-influenced split and build the measurement framework to track it., • Demand creation strategy for a finite TAM, • Design and execute a full-funnel marketing program for a market of ~275 core accounts. This means account-based marketing across tiered 1:1, 1:few, and 1:many motions — not spray-and-pray demand gen. You’ll own account selection, persona mapping, and multi-channel orchestration., • Event strategy and industry conferences, • Industry events are among the company’s highest-leverage touchpoints. You’ll own event strategy, booth presence, speaking submissions, executive dinners, and post-event nurture., • LinkedIn and thought leadership engine, • Build and run a founder-led content program with 3-5 posts per week, plus paid LinkedIn campaigns targeting named accounts by function and seniority. LinkedIn is a primary digital awareness channel for this market., • Brand and positioning, • Sharpen the company’s positioning from “cool AI product” to “must-have platform for every distributor and rep firm.” Own messaging, website, case studies, competitive positioning, and sales enablement content., • Content and SEO for long-term organic growth, • Organic search volume may still be relatively low for HVAC-specific terms today, but the SEO foundation needs to be built now to capture growing awareness. You’ll also own trade publication relationships., • Paid channels, • Stand up the company’s first paid engine. Start with modest Google Ads, LinkedIn Sponsored Content, and retargeting. Build the analytics to know what’s working and scale what does., • Marketing team buildout, • This is the first marketing hire. You’ll hire and manage a lean team and select the right agency partners to augment capacity., • Brand for recruiting, • Great marketing does not just generate pipeline — it also helps attract talent. You’ll help build the employer brand to support aggressive hiring plans post-Series A. What We’re Looking For • 6+ years of B2B marketing experience, with 3+ years in vertical SaaS or niche industrial markets, • Experience marketing to a finite, nameable buyer universe — hundreds, not millions of accounts, • Background in construction tech, distribution, trades technology, or industrial software is a strong plus, • Proven ability to build demand-creation programs from scratch, not just optimize an existing funnel, • Strong understanding of the difference between demand creation and demand capture, • Deep ABM experience, including account selection, persona targeting, channel mix, content mapping, and measurement, • Experience operationalizing intent signals, • Event-driven marketing expertise, with industry events used as a true pipeline channel, • Strong writer and storyteller who can ghostwrite founder content, build compelling case studies, and create high-impact presentations, • Experience being revenue-accountable, with ownership of pipeline targets and marketing-sourced / influenced revenue, • Comfortable in a small-team, high-autonomy environment, and able to switch between strategy and execution quickly Nice to Have • Experience marketing to HVAC, mechanical, plumbing, or electrical distribution or contractor markets, • Familiarity with HARDI, AIM/R, AHR Expo, or the HVAC distribution ecosystem, • Understanding of the construction estimating / takeoff workflow and the pain of manual processes, • Experience at a Series A or B startup that went through a crossing-the-chasm phase, • Product marketing background with the ability to translate technical capability into buyer value, • Experience with PE-backed buyer personas and operational efficiency priorities, • Experience running scalable ABM programs across all tiers with clear conversion data, • Experience building a lean marketing team with the right agency support Why Join • Product-market fit is real: 82% close rate and 27-day sales cycle once prospects see the product, • $14M Series A backing an aggressive growth plan, • Massive underserved market: HVAC estimating remains one of the last heavily manual knowledge-work processes in construction, • Strong market tailwinds, including labor shortages, regulatory change, consolidation, and construction growth, • Opportunity to be the founding marketing leader at a company positioned to define its category, • Founder with direct domain expertise and firsthand understanding of the buyer If you’re a strong fit and interested, feel free to apply or message me directly.