Founders Associate (6-month internship)

Vanilla Steel is a digital B2B platform serving the European metal industry with data and innovation and the mission of simplifying how steel and other metals are traded today.

We are a team of passionate tech entrepreneurs that combine more than 50 years of digital experiences with a passion for solving existing challenges through digitization.

It is an exciting time to join Vanilla Steel as we raised Pre-Seed and Seed financing from some of the best European VCs to grow our team and expand our business.

We are looking for an outstanding individual who wants to join an exciting early-stage start-up in its growth phase as a Founders Associate to work closely with our senior management and a highly motivated team.

The role is based in Berlin and can lead to full-time employment depending on the performance of the individual.

As Founders Associate, you will join the team full-time for 6 months internship as the right hand of the founders and your responsibilities will be to support Vanilla Steel in their objectives of growing the business as well as building sustainable and profitable operations. You will be exposed to a broad range of areas of the company that will evolve in parallel with the needs of Vanilla Steel:

• You will be the right hand and sparring partner for the founders on strategic and operational level and get hands-on exposure across both business and technical aspects of building a venture
• Take ownership of specific projects in the fields of Business development, Sales and Marketing
• Operations: analyze, automate and report on operational processes to increase efficiencies and scalability
• Sales: Perform and analyze sales initiatives to drive top-line growth
• Marketing: Develop high quality presentations and visuals for internal and external audiences, manage content marketing as well as implement our brand strategy
• Business Intelligence: monitor our competitors and support benchmarking in terms of website features, social media activities, emails and campaigns
• Strategy: develop and support the go-to-market strategy in our different markets
• Optimize current processes across all areas of the business as well as create new process
• Hiring: Support the founder team recruit and build a world-class team

• Recent graduate or student taking a gap year. More experienced candidates also welcomed
• Entrepreneurial drive, genuine curiosity and hands-on mentality
• A self-starter with a track record of achievements
• Ambitious, results-oriented and target-driven mentality
• Strong quantitative skills, structured thinking and hands-on attitude
• Solid organizational and time management skills
• Demonstrate excellent interpersonal skills
• Proficient in using large databases (Google-Suite, CRMs and LinkedIn)
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Proficiency in English, Additional languages (German or Italian especially) is a plus

• First hand experience with an exciting Berlin tech startup on a steep growth curve
• Work closely with an experienced team, keen to train and invest on you
• Fast-paced environment and strong company culture for high performing individuals
• Unrivaled autonomy and ownership on projects
• Open and fun shared working environment/culture
• Competitive compensation