Pantheon - Missionary Account Executive

About the Role

This is not a traditional AE role. There is no established playbook, no proven ICP, and no optimized pitch deck. What there is: a genuinely differentiated product, a team that runs structured GTM experiments, and an early-stage opportunity to help figure out how to sell it.

As our first Missionary AE, you'll be part of the Growth GTM team — working alongside our GTM Marketing Manager and PMM to run vertical experiments, test pricing schemas, and build the sales motion we'll eventually scale. In the near term, your focus is bringing on beta customers for P1 (our managed CMS platform) and Next.js hosting — understanding who will pay, what they'll pay, and why.

If you've always wanted to be in the room where go-to-market strategy gets made — and you're energized by iteration, ambiguity, and learning — this is that role.

What You'll Own

List Building & Research

• Build prospect lists for target verticals and roles (e.g., admissions heads at regional universities, marketing directors at credit unions)

• Exercise genuine ICP judgment — not just data pulling, but deciding which organizations, which signals, which personas are worth pursuing

• Use tools like Apollo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and others to research and qualify targets

Outbound Execution

• Execute multi-channel outbound sequences using assets (copy, benchmark reports, landing pages) developed by the GTM Marketing Manager

• Personalize outreach — first lines, timing, follow-up cadence — based on the specific prospect and vertical

• Manage LinkedIn outreach in parallel with email sequences

• You are not writing copy from scratch — you are executing and personalizing a motion that's been designed for you

Sales Conversations

• Book and hold discovery calls and product demos

• Run a consultative pitch — not a feature walkthrough, but a conversation designed to surface pain, test positioning, and find the right entry point

• Test different pitches, framings, and demo structures across conversations — deliberately, not randomly

Learning & Feedback Loop

• Debrief every meaningful conversation in a structured format: what resonated, what didn't, verbatim objections, pricing reactions, competitive mentions

• Bring that signal back to the team weekly — you are a primary data source, not just a pipeline generator

• Partner with the GTM Marketing Manager and PMM to iterate on positioning, sequences, and demo flow based on what you're hearing

• Provide direct feedback to the product team on what prospects wish existed, what's confusing, and what's blocking deals

Pricing Experimentation

• Test pricing schemas and levels as directed — different price points, packaging structures, and discount thresholds across beta prospects

• Document reactions to pricing with the same rigor as reactions to positioning

What We're Not Looking For

• A lone wolf who optimizes for personal quota and guards their pipeline

• Someone who abandons an approach after two bad conversations

• A classic enterprise AE who needs a mature sales process to operate in

• Someone who treats "no" as failure rather than data

Compensation

Base-heavy with variable tied to beta clients signed. Variable structure is designed to reward the behaviors that matter at this stage:

• Primary variable: beta customers brought on (paid, at any level)

• Secondary variable: qualified conversations completed with documented learnings

This structure reflects what we actually need right now — not just closes, but the learning that comes from the sales motion.

What You Bring

• 2–5 years of B2B sales experience, with meaningful time doing outbound — you know what a good sequence motion looks like and you've executed one

• Demonstrated research instinct — you can build a smart list, not just a big one

• Comfort running a full sales cycle: list → outreach → discovery → demo → close

• Strong debrief discipline — you can summarize a conversation, extract the signal, and communicate it clearly to a team

• Genuine curiosity about the verticals you're selling into — you read about your prospects, not just their job titles

• Collaborative working style — you share what you're learning in real time, not just in the quarterly review

Nice to have

• Experience selling to marketing leaders, digital teams, or university/higher ed buyers

• Familiarity with web technology or CMS platforms — you don't need to be technical, but you shouldn't be afraid of a conversation about web infrastructure

• Prior experience at an early-stage company or in a "first seller" type role

Why This Role

• You'll have direct input into how we define our sales motion, ICP, and pricing — not executing someone else's playbook

• Tight feedback loop with product, marketing, and leadership

• The experiments you run and the learnings you generate will directly shape the sales org as it scales

• If we find the motion and scale the team, you'll have helped build the foundation it runs on