Founding Head of Partnerships (Vals Smith)
GTM role for an AI model-evaluation product working directly with LLMs and foundation model evaluation; building sales motions for AI tools.
About the Role
Lead partnerships for Vals Smith by generating pipeline, running complex enterprise sales cycles, and building the go-to-market playbook. Own outbound, discovery, technical evaluation, negotiation, close, and expansion while collaborating with product and engineering to run POCs and translate customer needs into roadmap priorities.
Job Description
Role
Founding Head of Partnerships for Vals Smith, responsible for driving enterprise growth by owning the full sales cycle, building go-to-market motions, and partnering with product and engineering on technical evaluations and POCs.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the full sales cycle for Vals Smith: outbound, discovery, technical evaluation, negotiation, close, and expansion.
- Generate pipeline from three sources: inbound (waitlist/early users), warm introductions (founders/investors), and self-sourced cold outbound.
- Build the GTM playbook including ICP definition, qualification criteria, outbound sequences, packaging, and objection handling.
- Conduct technical evaluations and POCs in partnership with the founding PM and engineering team; surface deal feedback into product roadmap and packaging.
- Use data and tooling to monitor impact metrics and optimize sales strategy.
- Interact with senior leaders and decision makers at large enterprises and manage complex, multi-stakeholder deals.
Requirements
- 3+ years of enterprise sales experience in SaaS or technology, ideally with exposure to AI.
- Proven success closing six-figure deals and managing complex sales cycles with multiple stakeholders.
- Recent and relevant experience in outbound prospecting, especially to technical and enterprise personas.
- Ability to sell technical solutions to product and engineering leaders and translate complex technology into business value.
- Comfortable operating in an early-stage, high-growth environment and building new motions from scratch.
- Ability to work in-person in San Francisco; relocation support provided as needed.
Compensation & Benefits
- Compensation range: $150,000 - $200,000.
- Highly competitive salary and meaningful ownership/equity.
- Relocation and transportation support; $1,500 housing stipend (within one-mile radius).
- Full health, dental, and vision insurance coverage.
- 401(k) plan.
- Unlimited PTO.
- Lunch and dinner provided; free snacks, coffee, and drinks.
Company / Context
Vals AI builds an enterprise product, Vals Smith, that evaluates which model is best for a customer’s use case. The founding team has academic and industry experience in NLP and works with major foundation model labs and large enterprise customers. The company recently raised a $40M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.