Rama — Founders Associate

Type: Full-time | On-site | San Francisco, CA Compensation: $120,000–$150,000 base + competitive equity (~0.5% per outreach template) + up to $30,000 annual bonus Hiring count: 1 Visa sponsorship: None available — candidate must already be authorized and working in the US, no relocation Reports to: Co-Founder & CEO (name not provided in source)

About Rama

Rama builds AI agents for electronic component distribution. Distributors still run quoting, sourcing, and supplier workflows built decades ago on legacy ERPs, which means slow quotes, lost margin, and revenue left on the table. Rama sits on top of the systems distributors already use — connecting ERP, pricing files, inventory, and email — so RFQ response, supplier management, and pricing run through modern AI instead of manual spreadsheet work.

Traction is concrete: customers cut quote turnaround time by 96% and sell 13% more per rep, and Classic Components (a top-10 independent distributor, 238 employees) has grown revenue 21%. The underlying bet is that reliable, scalable supply chains gate how fast any technological breakthrough reaches people, and that fixing the distribution layer shortens that timeline across every industry that depends on electronics.

Founded: 2022 | Team size: 4 (soon 5) | Stage: Seed Industry: AI Tools Website: tryrama.com Office: San Francisco, CA

Why Candidates Should Join

• Seat next to the founder: Reports directly to the Co-Founder & CEO on a four-person team, working with him day to day.
• Proven traction: 96% faster quote turnaround, 13% more sold per rep, a top-10 distributor up 21% on revenue.
• Broad, self-defined mandate: Full-cycle sales, building the internal ops engine, and founder-directed special projects — a role for someone who defines the work as much as executes it.

Intake Call Summary

An intake video is attached to the Contrario role page, but no transcript was provided in the source HTML, so no intake summary can be produced. Request the transcript or notes if a summary is needed.

The Role

A generalist role sitting directly next to the founder on a team of four (soon five, with an engineer joining), splitting across three areas: top-of-funnel and outbound sales (~30–40%), operations and internal systems (~30–40%), and founder-directed special projects (~20–30%). Deliberately unstructured, with no rigid KPI framework — suited to someone comfortable defining the work as much as executing it.

What You'll Be Doing

• Full-cycle outbound: prospecting, cold outreach, booking meetings, running customer calls and product demos
• The internal operations engine behind the sales team — systems, tooling, and process design that raise output per rep
• Special projects assigned directly by the founder, such as new-market sizing and new-product evaluation
• Research and analysis that feeds go-to-market and product decisions, delivered fast and in a form the team can act on
• Whatever is unowned and important in a five-person company, without waiting to be told

Tech stack: Not specified in source.

Requirements

• 1 to 5 YOE
• Early-stage startup experience required
• Full cycle sales plus ops generalist
• SF, 6 days in person
• Must already be working in the US, no relocation

Green Flags

• Student-athletes and others with a sustained record of self-directed pursuit, where success required repeatedly failing and continuing
• Side projects or side hustles that generated real revenue, built independently rather than assigned
• Early-stage startup experience, including short but substantive stints at companies with traction
• Generalists who pair analytical rigor with a willingness to do unglamorous execution work
• Comfort with ambiguity and open-ended mandates, with a preference for defining the problem rather than receiving a fully scoped one

Red Flags

• A pattern of repeated three month stints across multiple companies. A single short tenure is not a concern
• Purely sales background oriented around quota attainment and cold call volume, with no interest or ability in operations
• No early-stage company experience, requiring process and structure to be built around them
• Preference for a structured environment with clearly defined KPIs and a fixed scope
• Seeking remote or hybrid work, or a schedule lighter than six days in person on startup hours

Requirements — Expanded Detail (from role body)

Must-Have

1. 1 to 5 years of experience, including candidates as early as six months out of college with meaningful early-stage exposure
2. Prior experience at an early-stage company, with demonstrated comfort operating on unstructured problems without established process
3. Willingness and appetite for both sides of the role: outbound sales execution and operations or systems building
4. Currently working in the US. No relocation from outside the country for this role
5. Able to work in person in San Francisco six days per week on startup hours

Nice-to-Have

• Experience at a YC-backed or comparably fast-moving early-stage company
• Consulting or analytical training combined with startup operating experience
• Prior exposure to supply chain, distribution, hardware, or industrial B2B markets
• A track record of building internal systems, automations, or tooling that improved a team's throughput

Role Details

• Salary — $120,000–$150,000
• Equity — Competitive (~0.5% per outreach template)
• Annual bonus — Up to $30,000 on top of base
• On-site policy — San Francisco, 6 days/week in person, startup hours
• Visa sponsorship — None available; must already be working in the US, no relocation
• Perks — Lunch and dinner provided in the office
• Employment type — Full-time
• Location — San Francisco, CA

Screening Questions

Not provided in source. No screening-questions section was present on the Contrario role page. (Note: Stage 3 is a take-home — either an outbound sales problem or an operations/systems-thinking problem — but no explicit screening questions were listed.)

Interview Process

Stage 1 — Pending Approval — Candidates awaiting initial approval. Stage 2 — Intro Chat — Intro chat with the Co-Founder and CEO. Stage 3 — Take-Home Assignment — Either an outbound sales problem or an operations/systems-thinking problem, selected based on where the open questions are for that candidate. Stage 4 — Chat with Sales Lead Stage 5 — Chat with a Member of the Founding Team Stage 6 — In-Person Trial Day Stage 7 — Offer Extended Stage 8 — Hired — Candidate accepts and starts.