Founding Account Executive

Founding Account Executive, Hackathon

About Brightidea and Hackathon

Brightidea launched the first online innovation platform in 2000, and 26 years later, we're still closer to the beginning of this category than the end. More than 300 global brands run on our platform today, including Coca-Cola, Docusign and Johnson & Johnson, with over 100,000 people using Brightidea every month and customers self-reporting more than $15 billion in business impact generated through it.

We believe innovation management is on the same trajectory finance, HR, and sales followed decades ago: as it becomes a larger share of what every business does, the systems to manage it become essential. We'd rather be early to that shift and help define what the category looks like than show up once it's obvious to everyone.

Hackathon is our newest bet on that thesis: a standalone startup spun out of Brightidea to build and sell a dedicated hackathon and innovation-event product. It runs with its own product, brand, and go-to-market motion, but has the backing, customer relationships, and 26 years of category credibility of its parent behind it. Joining now means joining a startup team of one (soon to be more) with a running start, not a business built from a blank sheet of paper.

The Role

We're hiring a Founding Account Executive to sell Hackathon exclusively — a new kind of Account Executive who doesn't just sell the product as it exists today, but actively finds the gaps between what a prospect needs and what Hackathon currently does, closes that gap in real time, and helps build the go-to-market motion itself as the first go-to-market hire on the team.

This is a full-cycle sales role focused entirely on the Hackathon product: you'll generate your own pipeline through outbound prospecting, run the sales process end to end, and close. But the differentiator is what happens when a deal stalls on "we don't do that yet." Instead of logging a feature request and waiting, you'll use AI tools to prototype the missing capability yourself or you'll diagnose quickly and confidently that it's genuinely not feasible right now, and reposition the deal accordingly.

Because this is a founding seat at a startup still finding its shape, your impact isn't limited to your own quota. You'll help stand up the playbook, process, and tooling that every AE hired after you will inherit — for Hackathon specifically, not for Brightidea's broader platform business.

What You'll Do

Sales Execution — Hackathon

• Own full-cycle sales for Hackathon. Source, qualify, run discovery and demos, negotiate, and close new business for the Hackathon product — no handoffs required.
• Prospect relentlessly. Build and execute your own outbound motion (email, LinkedIn, calling) to fill your own Hackathon pipeline, alongside any inbound/marketing-sourced leads and any warm intros from Brightidea's existing customer base.
• Find the gaps. In discovery and demo calls, identify where the Hackathon product doesn't fully meet a prospect's event, workflow, or requirement.
• Build the bridge. Use AI coding tools to rapidly prototype a solution — a script, a lightweight integration, a custom automation, a mockup of the missing feature — that lets the prospect see (and often use) the fix before the deal stalls.
• Know when to say no. Just as important as building: quickly and technically assess when something can't be reasonably solved for, so you don't overpromise or waste the prospect's time.
• Feed the product loop. Turn what you learn and build in the field into structured input for Hackathon's product and engineering effort — you're often the first person to prove a feature's value before it's ever formally scoped.
• Forecast accurately and manage a pipeline with discipline in the CRM.

Go-to-Market Build — Hackathon

• Help define the ICP and messaging. Sharpen who Hackathon sells to and why, based on real signal from the deals you're running — not a static persona doc inherited from the parent business.
• Stand up the playbook. Document what's working in discovery, demo, and closing so it can be codified into a repeatable process for future Hackathon AEs.
• Shape the tech stack. Weigh in on and help implement the CRM, sales engagement, and AI tooling Hackathon's go-to-market motion will run on as it scales.
• Partner cross-functionally. Work directly with Hackathon's product and marketing functions — and with Brightidea's broader Marketing, Product, and Customer Success teams where useful — to close feedback loops on positioning, packaging, and pricing while the motion is still being formed.
• Pressure-test pricing and packaging. Bring real objections and win/loss patterns back to leadership to inform how Hackathon packages and prices the product going forward.
• Help recruit the team you'll eventually work alongside. As Hackathon's founding AE, you may help source, screen, or reference-check future sales hires as the go-to-market team grows.

What Makes This Role Different

Most Account Executive’s sell around product gaps. This Account Executive closes them — for a single, focused product — and helps build that product's go-to-market engine at the same time. You're equal parts closer, builder, and GTM architect: comfortable being judged on quota, on your ability to stand up a working prototype between one call and the next, and on the lasting playbook and process you leave behind for the Hackathon team that follows you. You get startup-level ownership and speed, backed by the credibility, customer network, and 26-year track record of Brightidea.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of full-cycle B2B SaaS sales experience, with a track record of self-sourced pipeline and closed-won revenue
• Prior experience as an early or founding sales hire, or strong interest in building process from scratch rather than executing an existing playbook
• Genuine hands-on comfort with modern AI coding tools (e.g., Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT)
• Enough technical fluency to reason about feasibility: what's a quick script, what's an API integration, what's a real engineering lift
• Strong outbound instincts — you don't wait for leads, you build them
• Comfortable in front of technical and executive buyers alike; able to translate business pain into both a sales narrative and a technical prototype
• Curious, low-ego, and energized by ambiguity — this role doesn't have a well-worn playbook yet, and Hackathon doesn't yet have one either
• Comfortable being the sole (initial) go-to-market hire on a single-product startup team, rather than one of many AEs on an established product

Nice to Have

• Experience selling into innovation, HR, people ops, event, or L&D personas — the buyers most likely to run a hackathon or innovation event
• Prior experience at an early-stage or lean-team SaaS startup where AEs wear multiple hats
• Experience selling event, community, or engagement-platform products
• A portfolio, GitHub, or demo of something you've vibe-coded
• Experience helping build or formalize a sales process, playbook, or tooling stack from the ground up, ideally at a company spun out of or backed by a larger parent

Why Join Hackathon

You'd be the founding go-to-market hire for Hackathon — full ownership of the sales cycle for a single, focused product, paired with real license to build, and a genuine hand in shaping how this new business's go-to-market org operates from here forward. You get the speed and ownership of a startup without the usual startup risk: Hackathon has Brightidea's 26 years of category credibility, existing customer relationships, and operating support behind it. If you've ever wanted to build a go-to-market motion from scratch, or been frustrated watching deals die on "we don't have that feature," this is the role where you get to do both.

Compensation

$150,000 - $300,000 OTE depending on size of quota