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Job description
Company PropDesk (an A Foundery venture)
Model Human-backed, AI-enabled operations service for US property-management firms
Location New York/New Jersey
Primary market: United States
Type Co-Founder, full-time
Start: ASAP
A venture-building opportunity, not an employee or technical product role.
The Opportunity in One Line
We’re looking for a commercial founder to build the company behind a human-backed, AI-enabled operations service that helps US property-management firms respond faster, manage more doors and reduce pressure on their internal teams. The delivery capability already exists. Your job: find the sharpest customer need, win the market’s trust, and build the commercial company around it.
Compensation
Salary of $80,000 to $120,000 per year and a defined path to 45% ownership. Vesting and related terms are agreed in the Co-Founder agreement.
About A Foundery
A Foundery is a profit-led venture studio that partners with operators to build cash-positive companies through focused execution. We don’t chase valuation. We build businesses that survive without funding. We provide the backbone (funding, shared technology, delivery operations, finance, legal, HR, sales enablement and marketing, plus systemized delivery pods and playbooks) so you can concentrate on customers, revenue and growth.
We handle everything else. You own one thing: the commercial company.
The Customer Problem
Property-management teams handle leasing enquiries, resident questions, maintenance incidents, vendor coordination, rent reminders and after-hours calls across growing portfolios. Today that work is spread across property managers, maintenance coordinators, leasing teams, answering services and disconnected software. Staff repeatedly collect the same information, transfer messages between people, and manually follow up to check whether the next action happened. It fails when:
After-hours incidents reach already-overloaded managers
Leasing leads wait while staff are on tours or handling residents
Vendors receive incomplete information
Residents must repeat their situation to multiple people
Follow-ups sit in inboxes, spreadsheets or individual memory
Tools record requests without ensuring someone owns the next action
The cost isn’t just staff time. Firms face avoidable overtime, employee burnout, missed leasing opportunities, inconsistent resident experiences, operational backlogs and pressure to add headcount as portfolios grow. Software organizes tasks. Generic call centers take messages. Offshore assistants perform assigned work. None of them closes the operating loop from first contact to an accountable next action.
What We Are Building
PropDesk is a managed operations service for US residential and mixed-portfolio property-management firms. It combines:
AI-enabled intake and workflow coordination
Property-specific operating instructions
Dedicated offshore delivery pods
PropDesk’s own human Operations Desk
Structured escalation and follow-through
Compatibility with customers’ existing systems
AI supports routine intake, information gathering, classification, communication and follow-up. Human operators handle uncertainty, sensitive conversations, exceptions and work requiring judgment or intervention. The Co-Founder is not expected to build software. The supporting team owns the technology, operating infrastructure and service delivery; you own the market, customers, revenue and commercial company.
Commercial model: a predictable monthly platform and service fee, plus variable pricing for human-assisted work and additional operational volume.
The Value We Sell
PropDesk helps customers increase operational capacity without adding equivalent internal headcount, reduce repetitive manual communication and coordination, provide sustainable after-hours coverage, respond to residents and prospects more consistently, protect leasing opportunities through faster follow-up, preserve context across residents, managers and vendors, improve accountability for open incidents and next actions, and make existing property-management teams more productive.
We’re not selling another property-management dashboard. We sell dependable operational capacity with human accountability.
The Unfair Advantage
You don’t begin with a presentation and an untested idea. PropDesk is supported by experience building and operating offshore delivery pods, an existing operations team, prior customer and deployment experience, AI-enabled workflows and operating infrastructure, a human escalation layer, A Foundery’s shared company functions, and a model designed to work alongside existing customer systems.
The advantage is the combination of technology, trained people, operating procedures and commercial discipline. Individual features can be copied; building a reliable service that performs consistently across AI workflows, human escalation and customer-specific operations is harder. What still needs to be built is the commercial company: a sharp market wedge, a repeatable offer, a qualified pipeline, referenceable customers and a scalable revenue engine. That’s your mandate.
The Co-Founder Role
Primarily a commercial, customer-owning role, with the two sides split cleanly.
You own the Commercial Company: market selection and positioning, customer discovery, pipeline development, founder-led sales, pricing and commercial packaging, pilot design and negotiation, customer onboarding leadership, customer success, retention and expansion, and revenue forecasting and commercial accountability.
A Foundery / the supporting team own Delivery: technology and AI enablement, offshore operations and staffing, workflow implementation, service delivery, quality assurance, finance, legal, HR and admin infrastructure, and shared marketing and operating support.
You stay accountable for the customer outcome, but you won’t personally perform every technical or delivery task.
Jobs to Be Done
Define the wedge: Select the strongest initial segment, buyer and operational entry point within US property management.
Shape the offer: Convert PropDesk’s capabilities into a simple, commercially compelling managed-service package.
Build the pipeline: Create a disciplined prospecting motion targeting property-management owners, COOs and operational leaders.
Win the first customer: Lead discovery, demonstrations, proposals, pilot design and contract negotiation.
Own onboarding: Translate the customer’s operating rules, escalation paths and success criteria for the delivery team.
Prove value: Set a clear baseline and demonstrate operational capacity, responsiveness, reliability and economic value.
Convert and expand: Turn initial engagements into recurring contracts and identify additional workflows within each account.
Build the company: Establish the sales cadence, customer-success discipline, commercial scorecard and repeatable path from prospect to retained customer.
First 90 Days
Select and validate the initial customer segment and entry-point workflow; run structured discovery with qualified property-management operators; establish clear positioning, packaging and pricing; build a qualified opportunity pipeline; develop a repeatable outreach, discovery and proposal process; secure and onboard at least one paying customer; define the handoff between sales, onboarding and the delivery pod; and establish the initial customer-value and recurring-revenue scorecard.
The essential 90-day outcome: at least one paying customer onboarded, and a credible, repeatable path to more.
The Offer
Phase 1, Incubation (first 3 months). A pre-agreed salary of $80,000 to $120,000 per year, set against revenue, cash flow, scope and performance.
Phase 2, After the first paying customer. 5% ownership allocated on reaching $5,000 MRR. You earn equity by putting revenue on the board, not by signing a document.
Long-term ownership. A defined path to 45% of PodForge, subject to agreed milestones and continued contribution. Vesting, transfer and governance terms are settled in the formal Co-Founder agreement.
The structure is deliberate. Modest cash early, real ownership as the revenue arrives.
Who Should Consider This
You may be a fit if you’ve sold B2B services, managed services, operations solutions or property technology; can speak credibly with owners, COOs and operations leaders; enjoy customer discovery and founder-led selling; can turn broad capabilities into a focused offer; understand recurring revenue, unit economics and customer success; work effectively with distributed delivery teams; want meaningful ownership and direct P&L responsibility; and value cash-positive execution over fundraising theatre. Direct property-management experience is valuable, but strong commercial judgment, operating discipline and the ability to win customer trust matter most.
Why Now
Property-management firms are being asked to improve responsiveness and manage larger portfolios while controlling operating costs. AI can absorb routine volume, but customers still need accountability, judgment and reliable execution. PropDesk brings technology and human operations together in one managed service. The delivery capability exists. The opportunity now is to build the focused commercial company around it, and win that position first.
Learn more: PropDesk A Foundery
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Worksite address
new york, NY, 10261, US
Who can apply
Review the original listing for work authorization, qualifications and employer requirements.