We are looking for a versatile team member to manage media and marketing for the Slow Ventures team. This is a unique role for a uniquely versatile & driven character…. You need to have a great eye and great voice, but also be able to think on your feet, come up with innovative ideas - and package, amplify and execute, execute, execute.
We don’t do ‘traditional’ marketing, and this isn’t about ‘strategy’ for Slow as a brand — but we do get the word out in our own unique and powerful way, and want someone full time partnered with us to make our voices and firm messages even more impactful… for our core Seed venture fund, Opportunity fund, and creator focused fund… our twitter accounts for ‘vibe’ are slow (rarely used), sam lessin, kevin colleran, will quist, yoni, megan
Marketing is important and central to how we make money - not just some afterthought or pro forma activity. We’re fishing in weird waters out of the mainstream and need to attract the right people/companies with our ideas. But those ideas only have currency to the extent that people see them.
Types of things we expect someone to do / work with us on:
1. Supercharging hot-take ‘screenshot essays’ — Many of the partners (sam, will, yoni, etc.) have had great success telling stories through one page ‘screenshot essays’ we post on social media — The best of these have gotten millions of views and thousands of likes. Work with us to get these even better distributed / cross posted, excerpted, fast follow with video content, etc. to maximize their impact. Examples: here here here here here here
2. Big Idea Decks — One of the best strategies we have developed for really big ideas is we put out punchy slide-decks on docsend these have gone ‘niche’ very viral and provided real benefits for us as a firm growing our email lists, clout, sourcing lots of great deals, etc…. We could do more / better with these as well, using the list that comes from them to again fast follow with interviews, video, etc. remarking clips, even live events. Examples Here and Here
3. Short video creation / editing — We have started exploring putting ideas out as short 1 min or even 30 second videos … these seem to have legs as a strategy for again attacking the right founders and creators and sourcing deals (+ getting distribution) — help us super-charge these. example
4. Clip selection and distribution from Podcasts, Conferences, Etc.— We frequently do podcasts, interviews, and live events which create content on our ideas, but we do little to use that content / market with it. Help us organize all our interviews, select the right clips, and distribute them across social, email, etc.
5. Email Newsletters & Paid Highly Targeted Marketing — Over the years we have published on-again-off-again newsletters including ‘slow snailmail’ and our creator and crypto focused newsletters… when we do these, people like them and they WORK to attract talent and distribute ideas. Take command of these, make sure they go out, grow them, etc.
6. The Odd Event and ‘Running Gun’ Founder Interviews — we historically have done many pretty successful ‘micro-events’ both in person and digitally.. like ‘the future of social, privacy, etc’ — take command of this strategy and drive it doing a handful of small highly targeted conferences every year (also mix in running gun founder interviews)
7. Identifying Speaking opportunities – the partners are pretty well covered across the obvious conferences but there are increasingly more non-obvious, high leverage gatherings, conferences, events, podcast recordings, etc that we should be attending and presenting at (e.g. Hereticon, GenCon, etc.). Help identify events, podcasts, etc. we should get in front of help make it happen
More Specific Day-to-Day Responsibilities
Who you *probably* are….
You probably have 2-3 years of some form of ‘social media marketing’ experience, or maybe a very twitter and tech savvy journalist leaving that industry… you might come from the advertising world. You might do this type of media management somewhere bigger but feel stifled and want to have more responsibility yourself, or more avenues for creative freedom.
You are really really competent and thoughtful about how to handle twitter, linkedin, youtube, threads, and other social channels.
You should have experience with video editing, newsletter writing, etc. and it helps if you know something about finance and venture capital to start.
Most of all, you should be up for a challenge and to work hard. This might be a ‘forever’ job for you, but it probably isn’t — ~it probably is an opportunity to build a diverse set of skills around modern marketing, meet some great people, build a sizzle reel, and crush it for a few years and then go from there~
What we are confident of is that this is a GREAT job for a media/marketing generalist who is willing to work hard / run the playbook but also wants freedom to experiment and learn from our scrappy / different approach to marketing in the world of finance and VC.
FAQ
Is this for a full time role or are you looking for a contractor?
If you want to be a contractor and are amazing we can talk about it BUT we want someone who really lives sleeps and breaths this and winning at it… vs. is an ‘order taker’ … so biases towards full time.
What is the slow ‘brand’ / ‘voice’? Am I helping define that…?
We have done very well with a relatively decentralized approach – we each have our own voice / each person on the team, but they generally reinforce each other. We don’t like talking about ‘brand values’ / ‘branding exercise’ and generally think most corporate marketing stuff is silly – the brand definitely isn’t about over-polish VS putting ideas first and people first, and being a bit silly and irreverent.
Where is this job based/where do I need to live?
Our team is mostly split across the Bay Area and New York with a couple people in Boston (and one in Montana!). It’s probably good to live in one of the two hubs and be able to spend time IRL, be up close to the firm culture and ideas, etc..
Is this a “platform” job and will I be working with/for the portfolio companies to “add value.”
No. Not really… Maybe every once in a while you end up working on content with one as part of the broader theme, but this is for slow the firm, you aren’t a ‘resource for rent’ to the portfolio
What skills and abilities are we specifically looking for?
What is the Interview Process / How Are You Hiring?
Our process is relatively straightforward.
