About Iterative
Iterative is an accelerator that invests exclusively in startups in Southeast Asia. Founded in March 2020 by Hsu Ken Ooi and Brian Ma, Iterative has raised $65M across 2 funds, invested in 65+ companies, 120+ founders and the total value of Iterative companies is now worth $1.2 billion.
Our investors include Cendana, K5 Global, Village Global, Goodwater Capital with participation from a large network of Silicon Valley founders and execs including Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox), Achmad Zaky (Bukalapak), Andrew Chen (General partner a16z, Uber), Qasar Younis (Former COO YC, Applied Intuition), David Shim (Foursquare), Kum Hong Siew (Head of Airbnb Asia), Moses Lo (Founder, Xendit), and many more.
Iterative, as an organization, has 4 distinct functions and as a result, a team for each function.
- Recruiting – Find startups for Iterative to invest in
- Investments – Decide whether Iterative should invest in a startup
- Iterative Founders – Help the founders Iterative has invested in
- Support – Make Iterative a first class organization
Iterative is currently a team of 13 and growing quickly across each of these teams.
The Role
We’ve funded nearly 300 founders and deployed tens of millions in venture capital. Now, it’s time to level up how we run our most important product – the Accelerator Programme. The programme runs twice a year, with each batch including 15-25 companies. We’re looking for a Programme Manager to be responsible our flagship programme. Ensuring that founders get the most value out of their 12-weeks with Iterative. This role is critical to helping us execute our mission of boosting Southeast Asia’s GDP through entrepreneurship.
Your success will be measured by how well the programme runs, the experience founders have, and the outcomes they achieve. No pressure – our current NPS score for the S24 batch is +100.
What You’ll Do
The primary responsibility of this role is to manage the Accelerator programme.
- Programme Design – Although our programme is already both effective and well liked by founders, there’s always room for improvement. It will be your responsibility to find, design and implement those improvements. They could be changes to the existing things we do or something completely new.
- Recruit Visiting Partners, Experts and Speakers – A large part of what makes Iterative’s program successful is our ability to identify and recruit other experienced founders to work with our companies. It will be your responsibility to find those founders, recruit them to work with Iterative and onboard them to how our program works.
- Primary Point of Contact for Founders – You will be the primary point of contact for Founders during the programme. Manage their experience from onboarding to graduation, making sure they get the support they need during the programme. We expect you to sweat the small stuff and ensure that we give Founders a great experience with every last detail prepared, from a warm intro email to a thank you message.
- Events Management and Logistics – Oversee all aspects of programme kick-off and ongoing operations – from logistics, communications to event management. This will include planning the in-person orientation, managing feedback collection, experimenting with improvements, organizing expert sessions, and more. Juggling these tasks will require strong attention to detail and organizational skills.
- Optimize and Improve Our Operations – Use our NPS score and founder feedback to constantly improve the programme. Build and refine systems to streamline how we operate, scaling the programme without losing quality.
- Connect Founders with Resources – Facilitate connections and introductions between founders and investors, mentors, and other resources within our network to help them build their companies.
Who You Are
- You know how to run complex programmes or projects from planning to execution
- You’re detail-oriented and can handle multiple moving parts without dropping the ball
- You’ve either been a founder or worked closely with them, so you get what they need
- You don’t shy away from problems – in fact, you look for them and solve them
- You’re metrics-driven and always looking for ways to improve
- You’re great at keeping everyone in the loop and making sure things don’t fall through the cracks
- You are a systems thinker who can solve problems for a large number of founders
Culture
These are the Iterative values. They’re not for everyone but if they speak to you, you might be just what we’re looking for.
- Iterate or Die – We take this literally. Ship early, get continuous feedback, and boldly experiment. If not the organization will die.
- Empathy is Our Competitive Advantage – Our success depends on our ability to empathize with other people in the organization and the community.
- Be Realistically Ambitious – The best strategy for making a big impact is to be realistic, have a plan and be ambitious.
- Responsibility is a Privilege, Not a Right – Being part of Iterative means being given responsibility for a part of our business. Be a good steward of that responsibility by being accountable, diligent and open-minded.
