Founder's Associate

About Minimal

Minimal is a self-learning AI system for e-commerce customer experience. It covers the whole customer journey: answering pre-purchase questions that turn browsers into buyers, and resolving post-purchase requests end to end, from order changes to returns and refunds.

It fits into whatever stack a brand already runs. Minimal builds and adapts its own integrations with each brand's helpdesk, shop, ERP and logistics tools, so setup takes days instead of months of custom work.

Every conversation makes the system better. Minimal improves its own answers, and it tells brands what it learns: why customers hesitate before buying, what keeps going wrong after they do, and what to change. These insights and improvements reach the brand's team, or their agents, automatically.

We work with brands across the Netherlands, DACH, the Nordics and Spain, and we're expanding into larger international markets. We're backed by Y Combinator.

We're a small team, and the founders are the bottleneck on too many things. We're hiring someone to take a big share of that off their plate.

The role

You work directly with our founders, Niek (CEO) and Titus (CTO), on whatever matters most that week. One month that's getting a new market off the ground. The next it's fixing how we onboard customers, or getting a fundraise ready.

There's no fixed job description, and that's the point. You take a messy problem, work out what good looks like, and own it until it's done. Over time, the things you build become your own area, or the start of a new team.

What a typical quarter could include:

• Customers and revenue. Run onboardings, look after key accounts, find out why pilots convert or don't, and fix what's in the way.
• Sales. Build lead lists, run outbound to a new segment or country, prepare proposals, and take calls yourself.
• Operations. Set up the processes a growing company needs: pricing, contracts, invoicing, CRM hygiene, internal reporting.
• Strategy and analysis. Size a new market, compare pricing models, dig into churn, and turn the answer into a recommendation the founders can act on.
• Fundraising and investors. Prepare investor updates, data rooms and the analysis behind the pitch.
• Hiring. Write job posts, run first-round calls and keep the process moving.

What success looks like after 90 days

• At least one area the founders used to handle is now fully yours, and they've stopped thinking about it.
• You've shipped two or three projects end to end, each with a measurable result.
• You know our customers, our numbers and our product well enough to make calls without asking.

You are

• An owner. You finish things. Nobody has to chase you, and you say early when something is off track.
• Sharp with numbers. You can build a model in a spreadsheet, question it and explain it in plain language.
• Good with people. You're comfortable on a call with a customer, an investor or a candidate.
• A clear writer. Your emails, docs and recommendations are short and easy to act on.
• Quick to learn. You pick up a new domain in days, not months.
• Genuinely into AI. You use it every day, and you'd rather automate a task than repeat it.
• Native or near-native in English. Dutch, German, Spanish or a Nordic language is a plus.

Nice to have

• 1–3 years in consulting, banking, venture capital, or an operations or commercial role at a startup.
• You've started something of your own, even if it was small.
• You've worked in or with e-commerce or SaaS.
• You can build simple internal tools or automations yourself.

What we offer

• €45,000–€60,000 gross a year, plus equity.
• A front-row seat to how a YC-backed company is built, and real responsibility from week one.
• A fast track into a leadership role as the company grows.

How we hire

1. A 15-minute intro call.
2. A paid case: a real problem we're working on, with a short written recommendation.
3. A 45-minute interview where you walk us through your case.
4. A conversation with both founders.
5. A paid trial day with the team.