Operations & Strategy Manager

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## WorkBench by Novai — Operations & Strategy Manager
**Part Time to Full-Time · Remote · Reports Directly to Founder**

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### Context: What This Role Is and Why It Exists

We run a live home services marketplace in Los Angeles. Workers, clients, real jobs, real payments, real disputes — all moving through a platform we built and operate. We had a team. We let them go. This role exists because we need an operator who executes, not someone who processes.

What we learned from the previous team:

- **Process proposals are not output.** We do not need someone who responds to a directive with a Phase 0 reset plan. We need someone who reads the directive, asks one clarifying question if needed, and ships.
- **Blame is not a status update.** Platform issues, lead list quality, tool problems — a real operator diagnoses and escalates fast, they don't cite them as blockers for weeks.
- **Managing up is not management.** The previous team spent energy managing perception. This role is measured on metrics: workers onboarded, clients converted, pipeline health, issues resolved.
- **The founder should not know more about the team's CRM than the person running it.** That happened. It will not happen again.

If you are an executor who thrives on ownership and dies in ambiguity, this is the right seat. If you need structured corporate playbooks and a manager above you before you move — this role will not work.

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### What WorkBench Actually Is

A managed marketplace. Workers (contractors: landscapers, cleaners, handymen, maintenance crews) go through a 4-tier verification pipeline before they can accept jobs. Clients (property managers, HOAs, homeowners, commercial accounts) post jobs, workers are dispatched and matched. Revenue comes from a 15% platform fee per job and a $9.99/month worker subscription. We are past proof of concept. We are in the scale phase.

The platform is live at ---------- vaisystems.online. Admin panel, billing, disputes, worker approvals, email outbox, subscriptions — all operational. You will work in it daily. This is not a strategy deck. This is a running machine that needs a real operator.

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### The Role

You are the operating layer between the founder and everything else. You own the pipeline, the team, the platform queue, and the weekly cadence. The founder owns product direction, investor relationships, and final calls on strategy. You own execution.

**This is not a creative role. This is an accountability role.**

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### What You Own

**GTM Operations**
- Day-to-day management of the outbound team (2 SDRs currently) running sequences in ---------- across 1,750 scored leads — supply side (contractors) and demand side (property managers, HOAs, commercial accounts)
- HubSpot pipeline cleanliness across all three pipelines: Contractors, Property Managers, PAWS — deal stages accurate, no orphaned contacts, tasks never overdue
- Weekly pipeline report to founder: deals added, moved, stalled, won, and a one-line read on what's working and what isn't
- Sequence performance review: open rates, reply rates, call outcomes — flag what's underperforming and propose a fix within 48 hours, not a meeting

**Platform Operations**
- Worker onboarding queue: monitor which workers are stuck in the verification pipeline (IDV, background check, skill review, insurance), follow up, escalate to admin
- Client onboarding: ensure B2B accounts that signed get their first job posted within the SLA
- Dispute queue: triage open disputes, coordinate resolution with the admin panel — favor, notes, closure
- Billing finalization: coordinate with admin on jobs that need materials/tax capture before charging clients
- Email outbox monitoring: track failed sends, trigger resends or manual sends as needed
- Subscription status: flag workers past due or on the cancellation path — trigger reminders or escalate

**Team Management**
- Daily or every-other-day sync with SDR team — call counts, sequence steps completed, blockers
- First line of accountability for the team's numbers — you own the output before the founder sees it
- Onboard new tea ---------- mbers as the team scales
- Write and maintain SOPs for every repeatable process — if it's happened more than twice, it needs a doc

**Reporting**
- Weekly ops brief to founder: pipeline, platform health, team output, issues flagged, decisions needed
- Metrics owned: workers onboarded per week, clients activated, jobs completed, dispute resolution time, email deliverability

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### You Must Have

- **3+ years in operations, sales operations, or GTM management** — startup or high-growth environment strongly preferred
- ** ---------- fluency** — you can audit a sequence, read a deliverability report, and tell a rep exactly what they're doing wrong
- **HubSpot intermediate or above** — pipeline management, workflows, reporting, contact hygiene; you should be able to train someone else on it
- **People management experience** — you have managed at least 2 people and had hard conversations about performance
- **Platform-side ops experience** — you have managed a queue, a dashboard, or an ops workflow inside a live software product; "I've used CRMs" is not enough
- **Written English at a professional level** — your weekly brief goes to the founder; your client comms go to US property managers
- **Async-first discipline** — you document decisions, you don't rely on calls to move things forward

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### You Will Not Work Here If

- You respond to a directive with "let me think through whether this is the right approach" — we expect execution first, refinement second
- You need a week to orient before you start producing — you should be in the platform and the CRM on Day 1
- You treat team problems as the founder's problem to solve
- You conflate being busy with making progress — we measure output, not effort
- Your pipeline numbers are always "in progress" — we expect a hard count weekly

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### What You're Walking Into

- Live platform, live revenue, live team — this is not a build
- Apollo workspace with active sequences, scored lead lists, and a US dialer
- HubSpot with three live pipelines — they need a real manager, not just maintenance
- A direct line to the founder — fast feedback, high accountability, no layers
- A small team that needs a real lead, not a coordinator with a title

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### Compensation & Structure

- Competitive for the role level and market (Philippines-based preferred for team proximity and cost structure)
- Performance bonus tied to: workers activated, B2B clients signed, pipeline health score
- Full-time, Pacific Time overlap minimum 5 hours/day
- 90-day probationary period with clear metrics — we set the targets on Day 1, we review through Day 90

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### How to Apply

Two things required, in this order:

**1. Write one paragraph** — no more than 150 words — describing a time you took over an underperforming team or broken process and what specifically you changed in the first 30 days. Numbers preferred.

**2. Send a short Loom** (5 minutes max) showing:
- One Apollo sequence or campaign you managed — what was the rep doing wrong, what did you fix
- One HubSpot pipeline — how it looked when you took it over vs. how you left it

Applications without both items will not be reviewed.

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**We are not hiring a manager who manages the idea of working. We are hiring someone who runs the operation and sends the founder a clean brief on Friday.**