General Manager

About Curbwire

Curbwire is a hyperlocal newsletter service: a newspaper for every block. One email, one ZIP code, twice a week. Council minutes, police blotters, zoning dockets, school-board agendas, new restaurants, and the conversations shaping the neighborhood, distilled into a five-minute read. A working prototype is live at getcurbwire.com. Curbwire is being built within Austere Moose, a Los Angeles-based venture studio.

The Opportunity

Austere Moose is hiring a General Manager to run Curbwire day to day. You will operate the business end to end, covering product, growth, editorial quality, and performance, with the autonomy of an owner and the backing of the studio. This is a builder-operator role: the product ships when you ship it, and the audience grows when you grow it.

What You'll Do

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  Own the product end to end, using AI development tools to spec, build, test, and ship changes yourself. There is no engineering queue between you and the product.

  
  


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  Grow local email audiences ZIP by ZIP: referral mechanics, social repurposing, and constant attention to opens, clicks, and retention.

  
  


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  Set the editorial bar and hold it. Every edition should read like a sharp, plugged-in neighbor wrote it.

  
  


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  Read the numbers and act on them: subscriber growth, engagement, churn, and edition-level performance.

  
  


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  Set the operating plan and report on business performance to studio leadership.

  
  

What We're Looking For (in order of importance)

1. 
   

   AI-directed product development fluency (non-negotiable). You are comfortable using Claude Code, Cowork, or equivalent tools to spec, test, and ship product changes yourself, without queuing work behind an engineer. This is the load-bearing skill of the role.

   
   


2. 
   

   Growth and marketing instinct for email and local audiences (strongly preferred). Referral mechanics, social repurposing, and a working command of opens, clicks, and retention for hyperlocal. Generic B2B growth experience does not transfer.

   
   


3. 
   

   Editorial judgment for hyperlocal content. You can look at AI-generated copy and tell whether it reads like a longtime resident wrote it or like templated filler. This is where hyperlocal media has died at scale before, and we treat it as a first-class skill.

   
   


4. 
   

   Analytics literacy. Table stakes: you read the data and act on it.

   
   

Underneath all of it: real excitement about hyperlocal media, local community, and neighborhood networks. The right candidate finds the idea of a newspaper for every block irresistible.

Compensation

Base compensation of $100,000+, with the full package to be finalized with the selected candidate.