Founding Account Executive

Job description

Founding Account Executive About Vessel Vessel is building the future of housing. We combine breakthrough design, advanced manufacturing, and first-principles thinking to tackle one of the world's most pressing challenges: creating sustainable, attainable housing for all. This isn't just construction—it's a complete reimagining of how people live. Backed by Mosaic Ventures and Lennar, the nation's largest homebuilder, Vessel is rapidly scaling to meet growing demand. We care deeply about every detail—from beauty and durability to efficiency and accessibility—because we believe everyone deserves a thoughtfully made home. Role As Vessel's Founding Account Executive, you'll be responsible for new business sales across our all of our ideal customer profiles — both market-rate and affordable housing developers/operators. You'll own the full pipeline: doing your own outbound, further qualifying leads sourced by our BDR team, and guiding prospects through every stage of a complex, high value sales process to signed contract. Do you want to help define how an early-stage company closes its largest, most complex deals? Do you want to move fast, take on more responsibility, and grow alongside the business? Are you energized by long, multi-million dollar, multi-stakeholder sales cycles where you have to build the process as you go? If yes, this could be an incredible role for you. This isn't a role where you'll simply inherit a playbook, a deal desk, or a pre-built deck library. We're looking for someone excited to build all of it — while carrying a quota of $10M+ deals. Responsibilities - Own the Full Cycle: Run new business sales end-to-end — from outbound sourcing through negotiation to signed contract — across both market-rate and affordable housing ICPs. - Qualify and Advance Pipeline: Take leads generated by you, BDRs or our inbound motion, qualify them rigorously, and move them through a long, multi-stakeholder sales process with discipline. - Navigate Complexity: Manage deals shaped by factors outside your direct control — land acquisition, permitting, zoning, financing — and keep momentum through long timelines and many moving pieces. - Build the Motion: Help develop Vessel's sales process from the ground up — deal stages, qualification criteria, proposal structure, negotiation playbook — testing and refining what consistently works. - Bring the Market Back to Us: Develop deep expertise in developer/operator decision-making, procurement processes, and objections. Share those insights with the broader team to sharpen our positioning and product. - Work Closely With the Founders: Collaborate directly with Vessel's leadership on deal strategy, pricing, and go-to-market decisions. - Help Build What Comes Next: As you find repeatable patterns, document them and lay the groundwork for the sales team. Qualifications - Bachelors degree or equivalent experience. - 5+ years of closing experience, ideally in complex, long-cycle, multi-million dollar sales - Builder Mentality: You come from a scrappy, early-stage company— not an environment where resources, playbooks, and deal support were handed to you. - Complex Deal Experience: You've sold into multi-stakeholder processes with long cycles and external dependencies, and you know how to keep a deal moving when you don't control every variable. - Domain Fit: Either you've sold into our ICP (construction, real estate development, proptech) from an early-stage startup, or you're coming out of real estate/development itself and want to build a sales career in real estate. - Highly Adaptable: Comfortable operating in a fast-moving environment where priorities and strategies evolve quickly. - Strong Communicator: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to engage and persuade technical, financial, and executive stakeholders alike. - Bias for Action: Willing to try things, learn quickly, and iterate rather than waiting for a perfect plan. - Resilient: Comfortable with the rejection and long slog inherent to $10M+, multi-month sales cycles. What We Offer - Competitive compensation: $130,000–$150,000 base salary + variable, OTE of $250,000–$300,000 - The opportunity to be the Founding AE and have a direct impact on how Vessel closes its largest deals - Significant exposure to Vessel's leadership team - A fast path to increased ownership and career progression as the company grows - The chance to learn not just how to execute a sales motion, but how to build one - A culture that values experimentation, learning, ownership, and high performance - The opportunity to join early and help shape the culture, processes, and team that come after you