Co-Founder & CEO - AI Sales for Wholesale Distributors

FutureSight • Full-time • Remote (Austin, TX, US) • 16h ago

FutureSight is seeking an experienced, visionary Founding CEO to lead the launch of a new AI Sales platform explicitly designed for wholesale distributor sales reps.

Industrial wholesale distributors serving the HVAC, electrical, and plumbing markets face a perfect storm: experienced sales reps are retiring with decades of product knowledge, causing 6-12 months of productivity loss per retirement, while manual quoting can take hours to days when speed determines who wins deals. Distributors turn down 80% of RFPs due to capacity constraints, struggling to manage 100,000+ SKU catalogues and hire staff fast enough. This $2B TAM is growing at 25-30% annually with no dominant player.

The solution is an AI assistant that serves the complete distributor sales workflow, including inside sales, outside sales, commercial quoting, and counter sales. It transforms hours into seconds through real-time quote generation, automates RFQ processing with ERP integration, processes contractor takeoffs into accurate quotes, provides point-of-sale AI for counter staff, captures institutional expertise in the system, and delivers real-time cross-sell intelligence as a unified all-in-one platform for the complete front-office sales workflow.

As Founding CEO, you will

Win customers — Run pilots, shape pricing, and validate retention + expansion
Build the product — Work with FutureSight's product/engineering pod to launch V1
Raise capital — Lead the seed round with our initial investment
Build your team — Hire your founding team and set the cultural foundation

About FutureSight

FutureSight is a venture studio that co-creates and invests in B2B SaaS and Vertical AI startups alongside exceptional entrepreneurs. We give founders an unfair advantage — pairing hands-on studio support with early capital, reducing risk and increasing the odds of success by 10x.

We're led by a cross-functional team of builders and investors. Kevin Nguyen and Alan Smith lead venture design and product strategy. Prathna Ramesh applies her experience as a venture investor with capital strategy in every new business. Dennis Ensing mentors our ventures with operational and strategic expertise; Krista LaRiviere brings years of entrepreneurial and marketing experience as a multi-time-exited founder; and Anupama Joshi drives founder excellence. John Carbrey (San Francisco), a successful software entrepreneur and people leader, adds deep insight into scaling startups from 0 to 1, having built and exited multiple prior SaaS ventures.

What We Bring

Validated problem — You will enter a venture with a proven market need and strong momentum toward building and scaling
Studio bench strength — Designers, engineers, growth marketers, and fundraising pros are embedded from Day 1
Capital commitment — Initial pre-seed funding for early hires and building the MVP with potential for follow-on funding, and access to our investor and advisor network

What You Bring

Founder-level drive — You're motivated to co-found a new venture as the CEO. With or without us, this is your calling
Startup scrappiness — You know what you're signing up for. You're familiar with the scrappiness of owning something from start to finish
Previous founding experience — You have co-founded a product company or B2B SaaS venture or have been at a venture-backed company
Risk appetite and capacity — Read more on our post on the Entrepreneurial Risk Profile
GTM chops — Proven success in B2B SaaS sales, marketing, and customer engagement
Fundraising fluency — Able to craft investor narratives and close capital; well-networked in fintech and early-stage communities
People leadership — Magnet for top talent; coach and culture carrier
Industry experience — Background in building integrated sales SaaS products, working in parallel with ERPs

What You Can Expect

Daily active engagement with our team to: launch initial product, achieve initial market traction and prepare for seed fundraise
Full P/L ownership of the new entity
A significant equity stake in the business
This is a full-time role; we are seeking someone to dedicate themselves full-time and exclusively to building and owning a new SaaS venture