Founding Business Development Representative

About the role

This is the founding BDR position at an early-stage B2B AI/ML startup targeting Europe's industrial enterprises. You'll own the entire top of funnel, working directly alongside the COO to build the outbound motion from scratch and drive pipeline that moves ARR.

Key responsibilities

• Make cold calls every day, treating each conversation as real‑time market feedback and an opportunity to sharpen your approach.
• Build and prioritize a target account list, identifying which industrial enterprises fit the ICP and which trigger events make outreach timely.
• Work warm leads from trade fairs, webinars, and existing relationships, deciding which move first and how to convert interest into booked meetings.
• Execute multi‑channel cadences across cold call, LinkedIn, and email, spotting what lands and feeding insights back to sharpen messaging weekly.
• Book qualified discovery meetings with procurement leaders and C‑level contacts at complex industrial enterprises, focused on pipeline quality over activity volume.
• Bring market intelligence back to the team: every objection and refined message informs how the company positions, builds, and targets accounts.
• Shadow discovery calls early on and grow into running them, building a clear path from BDR toward owning deals.

Required profile

• 0 to 2 years of commercial experience in sales, fundraising, sponsorship acquisition, or a venture of your own, with a demonstrated track record of winning over stakeholders.
• Fluent German for phone conversations with German industrial buyers, and solid professional English for international communication.
• Proven ability to execute cold outreach by phone, email, and LinkedIn and convert conversations into qualified meetings with enterprise decision‑makers.
• Experience building and running multi‑channel sales sequences and prioritizing target accounts based on ICP fit.
• Comfortable working in enterprise or complex B2B sales environments with layered decision‑making structures.
• Resilient by nature: you treat rejection as information and keep conversation quality high through high‑volume outreach.
• Growth mindset with a hunger for hard feedback and measurable improvement week over week.
• Familiarity with supply chain, procurement, manufacturing, or industrial operations is a plus, as is experience with CRM and sales engagement platforms.

What we offer

• 28 vacation days and flexibility when you need to recharge.
• Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.