Founders Associate (f/m/d) - Sales & Business Development (Serial Entrepreneurs)

We previously co-founded and scaled Viafintech (Barzahlen) to more than 100 employees, building one of Germany’s leading FinTech companies with operations across 17 markets in Europe and the US. In 2021, Viafintech was acquired by the NYSE-listed Paysafe Group in a three-digit million-euro transaction.

Finperks is our next venture.

Founded in summer 2025, Finperks is building a unified infrastructure for prepaid products, including gift cards (e.g. Apple, Amazon, Google), airtime, and eCash, accessible through a single API. Our goal is to simplify a fragmented prepaid value chain and enable businesses to integrate and distribute prepaid products more efficiently.

Within the first months, we have onboarded 700+ brands and already built a solid customer base. The prepaid market is substantial, with annual volumes of approximately €600bn today, expected to grow significantly to €1.800bn by 2028.

By reducing the number of intermediaries and connecting brands more directly with clients, Finperks aims to improve efficiency and global reach. While prepaid products are currently concentrated in developed markets, we see long-term potential for broader global adoption, including emerging markets.

We are a highly growing company with a current team of 8 people based in Berlin-Charlottenburg, combining experienced team members from our previous company with new hires. We value ownership, collaboration, and a pragmatic, low-ego working style.

Join us early and help build a sustainable, global prepaid infrastructure.

As Founders Associate – Sales & Business Development, you will work directly with Founder Sebastian Seifert on building and scaling Finperks’ most important strategic partnerships. You will support and gradually take ownership of high-impact enterprise business development initiatives, help structure complex deals, and ensure execution across the full sales lifecycle.

The role is project-based, highly hands-on, and offers close proximity to founder-level decision-making. It is designed as a development track into a fully owning Business Development Manager position with direct responsibility for strategic enterprise partnerships.

Example tasks and projects during the first 12 months include:

• Supporting and gradually owning the end-to-end business development process — from market research and partner identification to outreach, demos, negotiations, and closing.
• Building and structuring a focused enterprise pipeline across Banks, Fintechs, Retailers, HR & Payroll providers, Crypto platforms, and consumer brands.
• Preparing tailored partnership proposals, commercial models, and industry-specific value propositions.
• Participating in and later leading partner meetings, product demos, and commercial discussions.
• Managing complex, multi-stakeholder B2B sales cycles with a long-term, strategic focus.
• Supporting deal structuring and commercial negotiations in close collaboration with the founder.
• Coordinating internal stakeholders (product, tech, operations) to ensure smooth execution and partner onboarding.
• Conducting strategic market analyses to identify high-potential partners capable of generating significant annual voucher turnover.
• Representing Finperks at industry events and selected on-site meetings across Europe.
• Taking ownership of clearly defined partnership projects with increasing commercial responsibility over time.

Must-haves:

• 2–5 years of professional experience in a fast-paced, high-performance environment (e.g. startup, scale-up, consulting, fintech, SaaS, banking, or B2B commercial roles).
• Proven ability to own and drive projects end-to-end, ideally with exposure to commercial, go-to-market, or partnership-related initiatives.
• Strong structured and disciplined working approach, with the ability to manage complex, multi-step processes over extended periods of time.
• High level of ambition, drive, and intrinsic motivation to build meaningful partnerships and close high-impact deals.
• Strong resilience and persistence, with the ability to handle rejection and long B2B sales cycles without losing momentum.
• Clear willingness to personally execute hands-on commercial work (research, outreach, follow-ups, preparation of materials, demos, coordination).
• Strong commercial thinking and analytical capabilities, with the ability to understand business models, pricing logic, and revenue mechanics.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills in English, suitable for interaction with senior stakeholders and C-level contacts.
• Fluency in English plus at least one major European language (e.g. French, Spanish, or Italian). German is not required.
• High ownership mentality, self-organization, and comfort operating in an early-stage, high-ambiguity environment.
• Ability to work closely with founders, acting as a reliable execution partner and sparring counterpart in strategic and commercial discussions.
• Willingness and flexibility to travel within Europe approximately 2–3 times per month.

Nice-to-haves:

• First experience in B2B business development, partnerships, enterprise sales, or go-to-market roles.
• Background in management or strategy consulting with exposure to commercial strategy, market entry, or growth topics.
• Experience supporting or managing complex B2B sales cycles involving multiple stakeholders.
• Exposure to high-value, low-volume deals where quality and strategic fit matter more than transaction volume.
• Experience in fintech, payments, SaaS, platform businesses, or other partnership-driven business models.

• Work directly with the founder to build and scale Finperks’ most important strategic partnerships.
• Own a small number of high-impact enterprise partnerships with significant strategic and revenue relevance.
• Play a key role in shaping Finperks’ partnership and go-to-market strategy from an early stage.
• Gain hands-on experience in complex B2B negotiations and long-cycle enterprise sales across Europe.
• Help build processes and structures from the ground up in a fast-growing startup.
• Experience fast personal and professional growth in a high-ownership, high-autonomy environment.
• Competitive compensation with performance-based upside

Office Policy: Hybrid. We don’t have clear rules but generally expect 80% attendance in the office. Not because of control or distrust, but because of speed, learning, and context compound when people work side by side.