Founding Account Executive

People catch mistakes by checking what they hear against what they know. AI doesn't check against what your company knows. Verity does. The check runs in under half a second against 200 sources, 5 to 9 times faster than a purpose-built checker and about 1,000 times cheaper per claim than a GPT-4 judge. Design partners are in motion. The buyers whose answers get reviewed (litigators and diligence teams in legal, research and risk teams in financial, analysts and policy teams in education, newsrooms and researchers in media) are the ones AI has burned hardest, and they are picking up the phone.

https://veritylabs.io

The role

You are the first seller at Verity. You run the full cycle from first touch to signature on accounts where the pain is already named and the budget is already allocated to "fix AI reliability." You will not be handed a playbook. You will write it, and the second AE will inherit it.

The sell here is proximity to the technical story and the founder. You sit next to the CTO on calls, next to the CEO on term sheets, next to design partners when they put the product into production. The next three sellers hired at Verity work for whoever this person becomes.

What you'll own

• Pipeline, end to end. Prospect, qualify, demo, pilot, close. No SDR hand-off, no CS hand-off, until you've hired them.
• The first ten logos. Target list already exists across financial services, legal, policy, and research. You prioritize ruthlessly.
• The pilot-to-production motion. Design-partner pilots are already running. Convert the first ones to paid, document what worked, turn it into a repeatable arc.
• Discovery that earns a technical conversation. The buyer's first question is "how is this different from a RAG wrapper?" You answer it credibly in one minute or you lose the room. We train you on the answer. You deliver it under pressure.
• Pricing feedback the CEO acts on. You are the fastest signal we have on where ACV lands. Bring numbers back.
• Objection teardowns. Every lost deal becomes a one-page memo. Every objection pattern becomes a slide. The sales motion compounds because you instrument it.
• The playbook. By quarter two, there is a written sales motion (ICP, qualifying questions, demo flow, pricing posture, pilot structure, close checklist) that the next hire can run on week one.
• Co-selling with the founder. For the first six months, every deal is run jointly. You lead. The CEO shows up when the technical or executive air cover is needed. You decide when.

Who you are

• You have closed deals in enterprise AI, legal tech, financial infrastructure, data/observability, security, or a technical B2B category where the buyer is a VP and the problem is reputational. Four to eight years of carrying a quota, with at least one year as early seller at a pre-Series A startup.
• You can run technical discovery without a solutions engineer in the room, and you know when to call one.
• You write well. Cold outreach, follow-ups, mutual action plans, deal reviews. Short, specific, zero slop.
• You read a buying committee quickly and multi-thread without being told to.
• You take rejection as information. You run tight loops on your own pipeline hygiene.
• You are allergic to pipeline theater. You can tell the difference between a deal that will close and a deal that is being managed to look like it will close, and you are honest about which is which in forecast calls.
• NYC-based or willing to work NYC hours, with regular travel to meet buyers in person. This is a conference-room sale.

Compensation

This role is equity-only today. Meaningful founding-AE equity (target range 0.5 to 1.5 percent, negotiated by stage of hire and track record), a seat at the pricing table, and conversion to a cash base plus commission plus equity once the company is in a position to pay salaries. Target post-close base: approximately $130K plus commission. Early seat, early stage, with the upside sized accordingly.

What that buys you: the first commercial seat at a company whose buyers are already asking for this. If the company works, you build the team you'd want to run. If it doesn't, you leave with the strongest commercial narrative available in enterprise AI ("founding AE at the first verifier company") plus the technical reps to go anywhere next.

If equity-only doesn't fit your situation, that's fair. Don't apply. If it does, this is one of the best commercial seats in New York right now.

How to apply

Short note. No templated cover letter. Three questions:

1. The hardest technical sale you have ever closed. Who was the buyer, what did they object to, and what did you say that moved them?
2. One deal you lost in the last 12 months, and the single thing you would do differently with the room you had.
3. Why this, now, at Verity. Two sentences.

Attach resume or LinkedIn, and the two or three logos you are proudest of closing. I read every submission personally for the first two weeks. Expect a 20-minute call within 72 hours if it's a fit.

James Knurbein
CEO & Co-founder, Verity Labs
j@veritylabs.io