Stories of Opportunity from the First Round Capital Key Hire Wire – COO, VP of Business Development, Online Marketing Director

If you know of senior level business and technical professionals looking for exciting startup opportunities, they can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/hVpW.

**Correction:  Last week's CTO position at Modcloth is actually a San Francisco opportunity, not Pittsburgh.

VP of Business Development, DNAnexus - Palo Alto, California

In the not too distant future, everything will be determined by your DNA--your  job,  what retro 50's decor you'll buy, how tightly you'll slick back your hair, whether or not you can date Uma Thurman... Welcome to Gat-- I mean ...DNAnexus.  

Your interview will, in fact, be conducted by a scientist.  Please use a cotton swab or Qtip, rub the inside of your mouth vigorously, and swipe the wet end across our online jobs page.  Your results, thanks to our high performance compute cloud should be available within an hour.

DNAnexus (www.dnanexus.com) is pioneering the combination of cloud computing and whole-genome DNA sequence analysis. Founded by leading bioinformatics professors at Stanford University, the company enables scientists and researchers to perform high-throughput sequence analysis quickly and easily. By managing the storage and analysis of sequence data, DNAnexus allows life science researchers to focus on what matters to them most: understanding the functioning and genetic basis of life, instead of worry about data center issues.
DNAnexus is recruiting an experienced leader to take charge of their business development efforts. The ideal candidate is already familiar with the complexities of the life sciences landscape and has developed relationships at sequencing tools and assays companies, biotechnology and commercial life sciences firms, and sequencing centers. Your responsibilities will include:

- Forming strategic partnerships with sequencing tools and assays companies

- Identifying and establishing relationships with leading genome research centers in both academia and commercial life sciences

- Refining the company's pricing model

Interested candidates should e-mail keyhirewire@firstround.com with "DNAnexus VBD" in the subject.


Senior VP of Operations/COO – ROBLOX - San Francisco, CA

Tree forts.
Wooden blocks.
Erector Set.
Tinker Toys.
Capsela.
Legos.

For years, young kids have been architecting mini-universes, stomping on them, getting small pieces caught in vacuum cleaners, and rebuilding all over again.  Now, all of that construction and destruction has moved online.

Unfortunately, you cannot be told what ROBLOX is, you have to see if for yourself.  (Check out the highly entertaining front page video.)

ROBLOX (www.roblox.com) is a web/game startup in Silicon Valley that you have probably never heard of--unless you were an eight year old boy, in which case you're probably not qualified for this position.  We are one of the fastest growing game and kid sites in 2009, according to comScore. We are also one of the stickiest sites on the internet.

Each month over 2 million unique visitors come to our site.  Our revenues have increased every quarter for the past two years.

Our team includes 12 top-notch engineers from NVidia, Microsoft, Stanford, Berkeley and Cornell.  Thousands of our users create interesting content every day.  We have a deep technology stack. Our team dabbles in everything from S3 and EC2 cloud services to SIMD and assembly code. On top of that throw in a bunch of web servers and SQL databases, cross-platform 3D graphics code and a highly scalable physics engine and you get the idea.  Our service is indescribably interesting and fun – we’ll let you decide for yourself.

ROBLOX is looking for a motivated, experienced, and hands-on Senior VP of Operations/COO to help do all of the things that makes ROBLOX go:

- Oversee our customer service and moderation teams
- Leverage customer service as an ideas engine for improving our product
- Manage all recruiting efforts
- Interface with our accountant and lawyers
- Handle all corporate / stock issues

QUALIFICATIONS

- BS in computer science, statistics, or equivalent, MBA a plus
- 3-7+ years experience in business operations
- Excellent analytical and technical skills – you are expert in Excel and love pivot tables
- Ability to think strategically and execute in a highly detail oriented manner
- Able to thrive in a fast-paced startup environment and remain calm under pressure
- Team player with experience managing and building teams
- Experience in gaming or with startups is a plus

Interested in an opportunity to be part of something unique?

Interested candidates should e-mail keyhirewire@firstround.com with "ROBLOX COO" in the subject.


Online Marketing Director, Knewton - New York, NY

"I am 15.  I stay up late playing Xbox, chatting, texting, listening to Slayer... and  there is absolutely nothing I love more than waking up early on a Saturday morning by my mom for my SAT class.  Its awesome.  There are 60 other kids stuffed into a room at the local elementary school made for about 20.  I'm always the last one there because mom won't floor it in the Family Truckster, which means I get to sit next to the kid we call Slimer because of his sinus issues.  

I watch everything YouTube and Hulu, so why can't I get this class online--with a teacher worth paying attention to?"

Knewton (www.knewton.com) has developed the industry's first adaptive learning engine, customizing educational content to meet the individual needs of each student.

Today, Knewton delivers test prep courses for the GMAT, LSAT, and SAT that bring the brightest and most experienced teachers directly to students worldwide via a live and on-demand online video classroom. Knewton's educational platform, however, can power any educational content, enabling students of all types to learn more effectively.

Knewton's Online Marketing Director is the key partner to the VP, Online Marketing and is responsible for helping the team drive customer acquisition and revenue growth through SEM (paid search), SEO, Affiliate Marketing, and Email. A position where that will call on strategic and tactical execution, this person will design and execute a broad range of campaigns to facilitate customer acquisition.

Responsibilities includes:

*    Identifying and pursuing new marketing opportunities
*    Execution of customer acquisition and revenue strategy
*    Reporting and analyzing acquisition metrics and profitability
*    Reporting and results analysis of landing page and other creative testing
*    Executing the email contact strategy for re-marketing/reactivation of database prospects
*    Link Building and affiliate/social media outreach

The right candidate should have experience managing to metrics and executing online marketing campaigns to achieve branding and performance targets. This person is also creative, curious and always looking for new ways to engage our customers. Knewton is an exciting startup that moves at speed, candidates must be capable of keeping pace with the fast moving start-up environment, while at the same time maintaining a positive approach and a sense of humor. Candidates must be comfortable wearing many marketing hats including copy-writer, online promotions strategist, social media junkie, and more.

*    Minimum of 3 years of software or Internet company experience in an online consumer acquisition role
*    Experience working/implementing tracking pixels, trafficking URLs and launching email campaigns
*    Strong business background, as well as excellent written and verbal communication skills
*    SEO experience
*    Strong work ethic; web-savvy and entrepreneurial
*    Experience in direct response or continuity marketing a plus
*    CS degree or former coding experience a plus
*    BA/BS, MBA a plus.

Interested candidates should e-mail keyhirewire@firstround.com with "Knewton OMD" in the subject.

This Week in the New York Innovation Community - March 1st, 2010

The Sleeper Agents of Innovation