Business Development Intern

Astiva AI is the Competitive Intelligence platform for AI Search and Visibility. AI search engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews) are replacing Google for product discovery. 883 million people use ChatGPT. 93% of AI sessions end without visiting a website. Most B2B brands are completely invisible in AI recommendations.

We help them fix it. We are building a brand-new category — AI Search Optimization (AISO) — and we are looking for someone to build the revenue engine alongside the founding team.

The role

You are the first BD hire. Not the 15th SDR on a team of 30. The first.

You will build the pipeline from zero. Two tracks:

Track 1: Outbound sales to mid-market B2B companies ($10M-$500M revenue). Research prospects, understand their business, write outreach that shows genuine insight, manage follow-ups, schedule demos.

Track 2: Partnership development with digital marketing agencies, SEO agencies, and AI consultancies. Pitch the partner program, manage outreach, support onboarding.

Both tracks report directly to the CEO. Short feedback loops. Real conversations with real decision-makers from week one.

What you will do

Build targeted prospect and agency lists using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, and research
Write personalized outreach emails and LinkedIn DMs that prove you understand the prospect's business
Manage the full pipeline: research, outreach, follow-up, demo scheduling, CRM updates
Develop agency partnerships: outreach, follow-up, call scheduling, onboarding support
Qualify inbound leads from the website, free tool, and content
Monitor competitors weekly: pricing, features, partnerships, positioning changes
Deliver weekly sales reports: activity, responses, demos, pipeline health
Target output: 30-50 sales outreach + 15-25 agency outreach per week

What we need

Excellent written and spoken English your messages are the product
Research ability: understand a company in 10 minutes and prove it in your outreach
Resilience: most outreach gets no reply, and that is completely normal
Organization: manage 50+ conversations across email, LinkedIn, and CRM without losing track
Interest in B2B SaaS, AI, or marketing technology genuine curiosity, not just a resume line
Active on LinkedIn Comfortable with DMs, networking, and professional engagement
Strong verbal communication for sales calls and demos

Bonus: CRM experience (HubSpot, Salesforce), outreach tools (Apollo, Saleshandy), LinkedIn Sales Navigator, SEO or digital marketing knowledge, previous BD or sales experience (even college fests), MBA or business degree

Why join a startup for BD instead of a large company

At a large company, you dial 100 numbers from a list, read a script, and log it in Salesforce. You learn one slice of the process. Nobody knows your name.

At Astiva, you build the entire BD engine. You write the outreach templates. You develop the partner program. You sit in pricing conversations. You hear objections from real decision-makers and learn how to handle them in real time.

In 6 months, you will have built more pipeline, had more real conversations, and learned more about B2B sales than most people learn in 3 years at a large company.

And if you are good, you become the BD lead of a funded AI startup. That is the trade.