VP of Growth

at  Mechanism Ventures

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Mechanism is an early-stage venture studio that partners with entrepreneurs to launch and scale ambitious companies.
In our model, we work to identify and validate opportunities before creating every business. We then provide the growth expertise to gain early traction as well as the business support to establish positive unit economics, profitability, and scale.
In addition to investment and strategic guidance, we offer extensive operational support for our startups in critical areas, including Growth, Product, Operations, People, Finance, and Legal. Our in-house experts are at the top of their fields and are here to provide world-class support and expertise in helping our startups get off the ground and scale.
As a team, we have deep expertise across growth marketing, and it’s a fundamental part of our company-wide culture. When it comes to launching and scaling companies, we don’t guess. We engineer.
Our success rate of getting companies profitable is 100%, and our team has a track record of investing in and co-founding multiple companies with $100M+ revenue.

JOB DESCRIPTION

As the VP of Growth, you will play a critical role in driving the success of our portfolio companies by ensuring the delivery of high-quality growth services across various functions, including paid media, SEO, and lifecycle marketing. You will be responsible for identifying new growth capabilities, and leading the build-out of these functions and capabilities so that our growth efforts across the portfolio compound over time. The ideal candidate will have multi-channel strategic and operational experience in growth marketing and operate with a strong focus on profitability as their main performance indicator.
At Mechanism, we engineer growth, and the ideal candidate for this role must have the analytical mindset to approach growth problems from a first principles point of view to drive success we can replicate. This role demands a deep understanding of systems thinking, a data-driven approach to decision-making, and the ability to simplify complex problems while maintaining speed and quality in execution. You will be responsible for keeping a high bar for the team and driving accountability so we can continuously improve.
In addition to managing and developing the growth team, the VP of Growth will work closely with portfolio company CEOs to drive and execute high-impact growth initiatives that bring companies to profitability. This includes working with the CEOs and functional leads to determine how to improve the ROI of our efforts, testing new growth initiatives (e.g., personalized user funnels), and jumping in to firefight performance when needed.
This role reports to the Chief Growth Officer.

SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERTISE

• Growth Experience: 5+ years of multi-channel strategic and operational experience in Growth Marketing, with a focus on scaling early-stage companies. The ideal candidate will have expertise in CRO, performance marketing, retention and lifecycle marketing, SEO, and strategic partnerships.
• Management Experience: Experience building, managing, and developing high-performance marketing teams, with a track record of building and coaching successful teams to achieve their goals. This includes setting clear expectations, providing regular feedback, and identifying growth and development opportunities to create a culture of high-performance, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Profitability Focus: A clear understanding of the importance of profitability metrics as key performance indicators (KPIs). You recognize that the Growth team’s primary goal is to drive business profit, and these metrics are essential for measuring the success of our efforts.
• Operational Excellence: Demonstrate speed and quality in execution, effectively handle ambiguity, and approach problems with a test-and-learn mindset. You must self-report progress regularly and ensure that speed does not compromise quality.
• Resourcefulness and Problem-Solving: Relentless resourcefulness, data-driven prioritization, decisive decision-making, and the ability to simplify complex problems.
• Systems Mindset: Strong systems thinking with a first principles approach. The ideal candidate is proficient in leveraging technology and automation to streamline operations and enhance team efficiency across the portfolio.
• Communication: You must have excellent oral and written communication skills and be highly responsive. You are comfortable collaborating with people from all walks of life and geographies.
• Attention to Detail and Analytical Skills: Strong attention to detail and a data-driven approach are required. You are highly analytical and excel at making data-driven decisions that align with long-term business objectives, ensuring your work consistently supports the company’s profitability and success.
• Proactive Continuous Improvement: Continuous self-improvement and being intellectually honest and coachable are essential.
• Strong Commercial Mindset: We build companies from scratch and focus on early profitability, so you must have a strong understanding of what’s important/not at each stage of a company’s development.
• Technical Proficiency: Mastery of Google Workspace products, Google Analytics 4, and leveraging AI for Growth and operational problems. Additionally, you should be proficient with Klaviyo (or other ESP), Shopify, Webflow, Google/Meta Ads, a third-party A/B testing tool, and Search Console.

• Manage and develop the growth team: You’ll manage our core growth functions, including paid media, SEO, partnerships, and lifecycle marketing. You will set clear expectations, provide regular and constructive feedback, and create opportunities for professional development. Your goal is to foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and testing, ensuring that each team member is driven to contribute their best work.
• Ensure exceptional delivery of growth services for our companies: You will ensure that the Growth team consistently delivers high-quality services that meet the needs of each company while maintaining a high bar for quality and speed. This includes structural aspects such as ensuring each engagement has a forecast, up-leveling team members, solving near-term bandwidth constraints with freelancers, etc.
• Drive compounding of growth functions: You’ll collaborate closely with growth function leads to set ambitious, data-driven goals for each function. You will establish and refine prioritization frameworks to achieve these goals and ensure accountability for high-quality, rapid execution.
• Build new, high-leverage growth capabilities: You will identify and develop new growth opportunities for the team. This may involve creating new functions, such as CRO and retention, or enhancing existing functions with new capabilities, such as implementing systems to source and manage sponsored content partnerships.
• Partner with CEOs to bring companies to profitability: Partner with company CEOs to drive, support, propose, and/or help execute high-impact growth initiatives to increase profitability. This can include full ownership of a growth initiative, jumping in to help firefight performance declines, and providing thought partnership as needed.
• Stay current on portfolio company performance: You will monitor daily performance across the portfolio and proactively flag potential issues to relevant stakeholders. You will use this information to identify and recommend actionable opportunities for improvement.
• Develop and utilize a deep understanding of the Mechanism model: Develop a deep understanding of the phases in our model, the KPIs for each phase, and how this informs how we prioritize.
• Own your accountability through weekly updates: You provide transparency into your work and use weekly updates to drive progress toward your goals (progress, learnings, and challenges).
• Stay current with the market: You will stay up-to-date on industry/competitor trends and AI applications for growth and use this information to evaluate the performance of our team and companies against the market.