Founding Role - Growth & Marketing (Commission-Based)

Up Coast Leaders · Remote · Commission with a real path to cofounder · Long-term

I run a free course, From Passion to Product, that teaches people how to figure out what to build before they pour months and money into the wrong thing. It's for new and aspiring founders with an idea they want to build into a product, and for engineers who have no way of gaining insight into what their PMs do.

Before anything else: this is not a normal job ad, because I'm not looking for an employee. I'm looking for a cofounder type who gels with me and the mission and wants to help make it real. That's why this write-up is so specific. I'm trying to find someone capable and motivated, not check boxes off a requirements list.

I need a partner to own growth, because I'm not good at sales or the people side of business. I can't negotiate. I don't know how to ask companies to partner with me. I'm good at teaching, building, and product thinking, and I do my best work when I focus on these things. I want to find the person who loves the growth and sales work the way I love the teaching and the strategy.

The heart of it is this: what you would be selling is the course and the continuing professional education that the Up Coast Leaders network provides, and standing behind both of those, me. You'd be banking on my reputation and my skills, and part of this job is knowing how to sell a person. So let me show you why this business is worth betting on.

Why I built this

AI changed who can build, but knowing how to think about what to build is still gated by money, and it doesn't need to be. I got into tech on a high-interest bootcamp loan while I was living on disability in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. That was a risk most people in my position couldn't take, and a chance most are never offered. I built this course to help remove that financial gate, because I believe tech gets better when more kinds of people are in the room. Not just more racial and gender diversity, but more diversity of income, of location, and of culture.

There's a second reason. Remote tech salaries are moving into small towns and pricing locals out of their own communities. The jobs that pay those salaries are remote, but nearly impossible to get without experience, so capable people feel they have to leave home to have a shot. I want to train people right where they are.

How the business makes money

The course is a two-week commitment when done full time, or spread out part time the way the current six-week cohort runs. It can run in more than one form, and the form determines who pays.

The flagship is the free public cohort, which also gives students entry into the Up Coast Leaders network. Free means the money comes from what sits around it: workbooks, session recordings, and a homework club during the cohort, then group coaching after it wraps. I've run this model once and the upsells converted. At those first-run rates, a 200-student cohort works out to roughly $5K in upsells, plus group coaching at $1,000 a year per student, which at conservative conversion rates is another $4K to $10K per cohort. And someone who actually knows marketing should beat my first-run numbers. The goal is three of these a year, at 200 students or more each.

The same course can also run as smaller paid cohorts, and this is where the bigger course revenue is:

• A nonprofit version, around $6K for up to 30 students, ideally grant-funded. Smaller cohorts get more hands-on support: homework help and a personal review of every student's final package.
• A business version, where a company hires me to teach its employees. Product management courses sell for $3K to $4.5K a seat, so a private team cohort with that same hands-on support can land in the $15K to $25K range.

Neither paid version has been sold yet. The course, the materials, and the infrastructure are all built, so I can run a class at any time, and you can help design the offers. I've run one two-week program, I'm running a six-week program right now, and the free cohort is proven. What I love is how well it lands at both ends: the non-technical founders who had never built anything, and the senior engineers who want to be indie devs but have never had the chance to learn that side of development at work.

I built all of this myself: the curriculum, the website, the systems, and the messaging, which converts better than industry standard conversion rates for solo course creators. The building is done. The full plan is what's left to execute.

I'm also taking the recordings from the current cohort and building a self-paced version of the course, which will sell at $495. I can't project revenue for it because sales depend entirely on traffic, but once it exists, every visitor that YouTube and later social media send to the page can convert one of two ways: into the next free cohort, or into the self-paced program. Courses at this price convert 1 to 2% of page traffic as the industry standard, and my pages so far have converted above the low end of industry ranges.

And there's sponsorship. The students are a high-value audience for the right companies: people in tech working toward leadership or their own startups, future indie devs, and founders coming from outside tech. They need tooling, services, and marketing now, and some of them will control budgets later. A sponsor gets more here than at a boutique conference with the same headcount: we meet nine times, so their logo is in front of students for nine sessions, the recordings get returned to long after, they can come in and teach a session that shows students they're knowledgeable and helpful, and there are no flights or hotels to pay for.

The course side is also only one of three verticals at Up Coast Digital Products, Inc. The other two: my own apps and tools, which I plan to build and sell, and a product research and strategy agency offering the work I teach as a service to businesses and startups. The free course trains future customers and creates very warm leads for all of that high-ticket work.

Where the role starts

It starts with the course side, and the work is top of funnel: getting people to know the course exists through member groups and media, helping me get YouTube started, and selling the paid cohorts. My marketing strategy includes the channels below. I'm open to changes, and I hope whoever joins is experienced enough to speak to the strategy:

• Member groups and communities. Coding groups, startup communities, member organisations. Not asking them to hand over their members, but getting them to share the free course with their people as legitimate, free career and tech-skills training.
• Nonprofits. Partnering to run the smaller, grant-funded version of the course.
• Businesses. Selling the business version, which means building real relationships and negotiating service contracts. I'm getting certified as a disabled-owned business, which opens doors with the large Canadian corporations that require it.
• YouTube. Longform, evergreen, educational content serving a specific niche, not chasing virality. You help with topic research and titles, I film.
• Social media, if you want it, though I don't think we need it at first: everything I've researched says longform YouTube with a good warm lead-gen process can be all a niche course creator needs. I'm only on LinkedIn, and my network there is too small to carry this, because growing a network the way influencers do means posting divisive things and chasing attention, and I won't do that. I'm not a thought leader and I have no interest in becoming one. If you do want another platform like TikTok, I'm not experienced with social media, so it would need to be totally managed: you'd own it and tell me what to film. I want to be a teacher, not an influencer.

Alongside the top-of-funnel work: leading the sales calls for group coaching (I'm in them as the teacher if you want, you drive the sale), coaching me on how to talk about the paid offerings during class because talking about money doesn't come naturally to me, and being a real, trusted presence with students in the Slack so that when a purchase recommendation comes, it comes from someone they already trust.

I'm open to changes to all of this. Not a full rewrite, but real input, as long as it honours the mission.

Where it grows

The other two verticals come later. Selling product research and strategy services could start whenever you want, but the network is small right now and I doubt many students are ready to buy that yet, so early on it would mostly be cold outreach to businesses. Marketing my own apps and tools is at least six months out. The role starts with one vertical and grows into owning growth for all three.

How you would be paid

Commission only, no base salary, and revenue will take time to build. You should have another income or enough runway of your own that this doesn't need to pay your rent right away. I expect this to be part-time work that grows into full time as revenue brings more verticals online, but I'm not a marketer and I don't know how much time is needed to build these kinds of relationships and close sales. I want all of that clear going in, because I want this to be a long-term relationship. I'm looking for someone who could be a cofounder, whether officially or in spirit.

What I'm offering is a percentage of all Up Coast revenue, and I'm flexible on structure: a higher percentage up front, a lifetime commission on the students you bring in, or a tiered percentage that grows with revenue.

Here's why the ceiling is higher than the cohort upsell number above suggests. The course vertical also includes the nonprofit and business cohorts, the group coaching, and advanced courses I plan to build, none of which has been sold yet. I've mapped this out with deliberately conservative conversion rates, and at target volume the course vertical alone works out to roughly $90K in total revenue in year one, growing to $120K by year three. I'll happily walk you through that math.

And courses are one vertical of three. My apps and tools will need app marketing as they come online. The product research and strategy agency is high-ticket contract work, sold with the same motion as the business cohorts. None of that is in the $120K, and you'd own growth for all of it.

The cofounder path is real, not a carrot on a stick. If this works and we work well together, it means actual ownership of the part of the business you build.

Who I am

I have more than a decade in tech. I worked my way up to staff engineer with credits at Intel, Mastercard, and Rivian, where I hold a patent for the architecture behind how the app communicates with the vehicle. I crossed into product management there too, so I've sat on both sides.

I also speak: a workshop and two talks at Swift Rockies in Calgary this July, ProductCamp Vancouver in May, and talks in the iOS and developer community going back to 2019. If you can help me land more speaking and press, that feeds the whole business.

Where things stand

Recruiting at volume is the one problem I haven't solved, and I've been working it alone: my cohorts so far have been too small to make the model financially viable, so I'm out of runway and job searching alongside this. That means I can't give the business my full attention right now. The program is built and the model converts. What's missing is reach, and I've learned outreach is not my strong suit. I need someone who's good at it to take it and run.

And even later, when revenue lets me put my full attention back on Up Coast, my health means my capacity will be smaller than most founders'. I'm looking for a long-term partner who understands my limits, doesn't let my limits limit them, and brings their own ideas.

Who you are

You have real marketing experience, ideally selling courses or coaching. You can run this whole side of the business without me tracking it, and that matters a great deal: juggling people and multiple channels is not where I shine, so I need someone who carries the moving pieces so I don't have to. You're comfortable building business relationships, negotiating service contracts, and filling out grant applications. You know how to respectfully sell to people who need what you're selling.

It's a real partnership: you sell the product, I'll make it and facilitate it.

You're familiar with the tech industry, through your own work or the people around you, or you're eager to learn. Either way, you'll watch all of the course recordings and follow the framework yourself, so you understand the whole process and can really speak to the students.

Bonus points for small-audience, high-value educational YouTube and for video editing. App marketing experience will be helpful as the product side comes online.

If this sounds like you, come sit in on the live cohort and see it for yourself. Testimonials are at upcoastleaders.ca and the course page is at upcoastleaders.ca/app-strategy/course.

Applying

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