About AI Colleagues and Orcheo
AI Colleagues is building Orcheo, an open-source platform for creating and operating trusted AI colleagues.
Orcheo helps organisations address capacity shortages by turning complex business processes into reliable AI-powered workflows. It combines flexible workflow automation, AI agents, human oversight, and reusable integrations in a platform designed for both technical and non-technical users.
We have built the core technology and several working AI colleagues, including solutions for customer service, research, analytics, and knowledge work. Our next challenge is to identify the strongest initial customer segment, deeply understand its most urgent problems, and turn our technology into a focused product that customers actively want to adopt.
The role
We are looking for a commercially minded co-founder to lead customer discovery, product–market alignment, and early go-to-market development.
This is not a conventional sales role focused on selling a finished product. You will work directly with prospective customers to discover where capacity shortages are most painful, identify the right initial ideal customer profile, and translate those insights into product priorities.
You will work closely with the technical founder to connect customer needs with Orcheo’s capabilities. Together, we will define the company’s initial market wedge, secure design partners, develop repeatable use cases, and build the foundations of a scalable business.
What you will do
- Lead customer discovery across potential customer segments.
- Conduct interviews with decision-makers, users, and operational stakeholders.
- Identify recurring, urgent, and budget-worthy customer problems.
- Define and continuously refine our initial ideal customer profile.
- Distinguish genuine purchasing intent from general interest in AI.
- Develop relationships with design partners and early customers.
- Map customer workflows and identify where AI colleagues can create measurable value.
- Translate customer insights into clear product requirements and priorities.
- Shape positioning, messaging, packaging, and pricing.
- Lead founder-led sales, including outreach, qualification, demonstrations, proposals, and negotiations.
- Build an initial pipeline and test repeatable customer-acquisition approaches.
- Represent the company in customer meetings, partnerships, events, and investor conversations.
- Help define the broader commercial strategy and company direction.
Who we are looking for
You are likely to be a strong fit if you:
- Have experience in early-stage B2B SaaS, enterprise software, automation, AI, consulting, or digital transformation.
- Are highly skilled at customer discovery and asking questions that uncover real operational problems.
- Are comfortable speaking with prospective customers before the product and positioning are fully defined.
- Can turn ambiguous customer conversations into clear hypotheses and decisions.
- Understand how organisations evaluate, purchase, and adopt new technology.
- Are willing to conduct cold outreach and build relationships from scratch.
- Can sell a vision while remaining honest about the product’s current capabilities.
- Think like a product manager as well as a commercial founder.
- Can work with technical concepts such as workflows, APIs, integrations, data, and AI systems.
- Are comfortable doing hands-on, non-scalable work during the early stages.
- Have strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Want to build a company, not simply occupy a commercial position.
Particularly valuable experience
Any of the following would be especially relevant:
- Selling or launching an early-stage B2B product.
- Working as a founder, product manager, solutions engineer, implementation lead, consultant, or technical salesperson.
- Leading customer support, research, operations, analytics, knowledge management, or another capacity-constrained business function.
- Building partnerships or selling to organisations in the Netherlands or wider European market.
- Working with AI automation, workflow platforms, enterprise software, or professional services.
- Having an existing network within a potential target industry.
What success looks like in the first 90 days
During the first three months, you would be expected to:
- Develop and test several clear ICP and pain-point hypotheses.
- Conduct a substantial number of high-quality customer-discovery conversations.
- Identify the customer segment with the strongest combination of urgency, access, willingness to pay, and product fit.
- Secure a small group of active design partners or pilot customers.
- Define the initial must-have workflow or use case.
- Recommend which opportunities we should pursue, narrow, postpone, or abandon.
- Create clear positioning and messaging for the selected market.
- Establish the beginnings of a repeatable founder-led sales process.
The objective is not simply to generate activity. It is to produce evidence that helps us make faster and better product and market decisions.
How we will work together
The technical founder will lead the platform, engineering, and technical product development. You will lead market discovery, customer relationships, and commercial development.
Product strategy will be shared. Customer evidence, technical feasibility, business potential, and long-term company direction will guide our decisions.
Both founders should be willing to challenge assumptions, speak directly with customers, and take responsibility beyond formal job boundaries.
What we offer
- A genuine co-founder position with meaningful ownership.
- The opportunity to shape the company, product, market, and culture from an early stage.
- A working technical platform rather than an idea-stage concept.
- Direct influence over which customer problems and industries we pursue.
- The opportunity to build a European AI software company addressing a significant organisational challenge.
- Flexible working arrangements, with a preference for someone able to work closely with the founder and customers in the Netherlands and Europe.
Compensation and equity will depend on experience, commitment, timing, and the company’s financing stage.
How to apply
Please send a short introduction covering:
- Why this problem and company interest you.
- Your experience discovering, selling, or delivering early-stage B2B products.
- A customer segment you believe may be a strong initial market for Orcheo.
- How you would validate that hypothesis during your first month.
- Examples of situations where customer evidence changed your original assumptions.
We value demonstrated initiative more than polished applications. Candidates who proactively speak with potential customers or present a thoughtful market hypothesis will stand out.