Founding Account Executive

About Garden

Garden (gardenintel.com) accelerates global technological development by fixing the patent system. We build AI-powered search and analysis tools for R&D orgs, inventors, prosecutors, and litigators. Our core platform helps companies file strategic IP and enforce their portfolios. We monetized within weeks of launching, have hundreds of users, a growing enterprise waitlist, and raised a seed from top Silicon Valley VCs, that include Spark Capital, Craft Ventures (David Sacks's fund), Ken Howery (co-founder of PayPal and Founders Fund), Zach Perret (founder of Plaid), Julius Genachowski (former FCC Chairman, former GC of IAC), Chad Byers (founder of Susa Ventures), and more.

We’re a tight-knit NYC team that’s customer-obsessed, ships fast, and works in-person 5–6 days/week. If you want to help reinvent how innovation decisions get made—and you like owning outcomes—come build with us.

Why this role

You’ll be our first/one of the first AEs, owning the full enterprise sales motion and shaping our go-to-market from the ground up. You’ll partner directly with the CEO and founding team, sell a highly technical product to sophisticated buyers, and help define the sales playbook, ICP, and pricing strategy.

What you’ll do

• Own the full cycle: outbound, prospecting, discovery, multi-threading, pilots/POCs, negotiation, and close for mid-market and enterprise accounts (AmLaw firms, litigation boutiques, Fortune 1000 in-house/IP, and R&D-heavy companies).

• Become a domain expert: learn patent workflows (102/103, IPRs, claim charting, prosecution vs. litigation) and credibly demo platform to partners, GCs, heads of IP, and technical stakeholders.

• Build trust with skeptics: handle objections to automation/AI by diving into details—how we source prior art, chart accuracy, explainability, validation, and risk.

• Create the playbook: codify messaging, sequences, qualification, proof frameworks, and deal reviews; help stand up repeatable pipeline generation.

• Forecast with discipline: maintain clean pipeline/CRM hygiene, deliver dependable forecasts, and consistently hit/exceed targets.

• Close the loop with product: translate customer pain into roadmap input; influence experiments on pricing, packaging, and pilots.

• Partner on deployment: ensure smooth handoffs to Customer Success; stay involved through value realization in the first 90 days.

• Represent Garden at industry events (AIPLA, IPO, INTA, IPBC, litigation conferences) and targeted field marketing.

Who you are

• 3–5 years closing new business in B2B SaaS with complex, consultative deals; consistent success against $1M+ new ARR or equivalent new-business quotas.

• Enterprise seller DNA: skilled at discovery, value mapping, multi-threading, navigating procurement/legal, and building executive champions.

• Technical curiosity: comfortable demoing AI/analytics products and getting into the weeds on workflows, data sources, and evaluation.

• Builder mentality: scrappy prospector, crisp writer, strong presenter; thrives with ambiguity and low process; eager to write the first version of “how we sell.”

• High integrity forecaster with rigorous pipeline management.

• Domain plus: experience selling to legal/IP, R&D, life sciences, or data/AI platforms is a bonus—not a requirement.

• Location: In-person, NYC (required). Willing to travel for customers and conferences.

What success looks like

• 30 days: clear ICP/hypothesis, active outbound, qualified meetings on calendar, confident product demo.

• 90 days: opportunities past solution validation/pilot stage; early wins in core segments; first version of messaging + talk track documented.

• 6–12 months: repeatable motion with reference customers, predictable forecasts, and material contribution to new ARR.

Compensation & benefits

• OTE: $200,000–$300,000 (base + variable) with meaningful early equity; accelerators for over-performance.

• Competitive health benefits and standard startup perks.

• Tools, budget, and support to win (events, sequences, content, and product access).

How we work

• Fast feedback loops, founder-led sales, and tight alignment between sales, product, and engineering.

• We bias to in-person collaboration and rapid iteration. We write things down, measure what matters, and keep promises to customers.