Founding GTM Lead

About the role

• Schemata is transforming the $400 billion virtual-training and simulation market by combining 3D computer vision, neural rendering, and large multimodal models for highly regulated industries. Its platform delivers photorealistic, intelligent 3D experiences requiring spatial reasoning, high-performance data pipelines, and integration between traditional graphics and AI-driven perception.
• As Schemata's first dedicated go-to-market hire, you will bring outbound in-house and build the function from scratch. This is an individual contributor role owning pipeline creation from targeting and messaging through outreach and follow-up until a meeting or a clear no.
• About 50% of your time will focus on outbound and follow-up, 25% on ideal customer profiles and messaging, and 25% on signals, tools, and reporting, with more tooling work during the first 90 days.
• Success is measured by pipeline created, not messages sent. The target market consists of hundreds of buyers, not millions, and requires thoughtful, researched outreach rather than volume.
• Buyers include maintenance groups at Air Force bases, program offices, equipment manufacturers' maintenance leaders, and energy companies' field service leaders.
• You will initially prioritize commercial growth alongside the VP of Business Development and commercial Deployment Strategists as that team grows, while also supporting federal Deployment Strategists.
• You book and prepare meetings; the VP of Business Development and Deployment Strategists run discovery and close deals. Strong performance offers a clear path into leading go-to-market as the team expands.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain a focused, tiered target account list with the sales team across federal units, program offices, commercial asset owners, and original equipment manufacturers.
• Map priority accounts to understand which sub-organizations own the problem, who feels the pain, who controls the budget, and what has recently changed.
• Write and run tailored outreach across LinkedIn, email, and phone using your own natural, personal copy.
• Respond quickly to every reply and inbound lead: qualify, nurture, disqualify, and book meetings for Deployment Strategists and the VP of Business Development.
• Own disciplined follow-up, especially with interested prospects who have not booked a meeting.
• Build pipeline around conferences and industry events by booking meetings before arrival and following up before the week ends.
• Run a steady testing loop: form a hypothesis about a segment or message, build an audience, test, interpret results, and recommend the next move.
• Keep ideal customer profiles and personas current using evidence from replies, discovery calls, wins, and losses.
• Translate findings into sharper messaging and propose narrative changes. The VP of Business Development owns the final narrative; you supply the evidence.
• Create one-pagers, short case studies, landing page copy, and account-specific leave-behinds from approved content, using only claims that can be sourced.
• Maintain a working view of competitors and where Schemata's positioning succeeds or struggles.
• Build and automate weekly signal tracking across priority federal and commercial accounts. Signals include contract awards, budget lines, leadership changes, facility expansions, new equipment, technician hiring surges, and public statements about workforce or readiness problems.
• Operate a lean stack of AI research and drafting tools, contact enrichment tools such as Clay, sequencing, and simple time-saving automations. Start with the existing setup and recommend what to add, retain, or remove; mass-outbound infrastructure is not the current goal.
• Keep the Notion CRM current, with an owner and logged next step for every active account and contact.
• Report weekly on accounts worked, conversations started, meetings booked and held, opportunities created, and pipeline sourced. Explain what the numbers mean, including whether a test failed because of the audience or the message.

First 90 days

• By day 30: Learn the product, customers, current pipeline, and past outbound campaigns; take over the starter outbound setup; audit tools and CRM; build briefs on your first 20 target accounts; and book your first meetings.
• By day 60: Own a tiered commercial and federal target list, run signal-driven rather than calendar-driven outreach, produce a weekly report leadership reads, and launch your first test against a hypothesis you defined.
• By day 90: Establish a steady meeting cadence, source at least one pipeline opportunity, present results and clear recommendations from at least two segment or messaging tests, and document a playbook someone else could run.

Requirements

• Three to six years in outbound-heavy roles such as SDR, BDR, growth, demand generation, GTM engineering, or product marketing, including at least one role where you personally built lists and wrote copy.
• A record of running audience or messaging experiments and changing course based on results.
• Excellent, plain-spoken writing; your copy will be evaluated.
• Strong research instincts and the ability to quickly learn an unfamiliar industry or military organization and identify the person who owns the problem.
• Fluency with modern outbound and AI tools, including building enrichment and signal workflows in tools such as Clay, creating simple automations, and understanding email deliverability.
• Comfort with spreadsheets and simple analysis, honesty about what the numbers show, and willingness to stop work that is not producing results.
• Comfort with ambiguity and startup pace, including setting your own priorities more often than receiving them.
• U.S. person status.
• Preferred: Experience in aviation, industrial maintenance, maintenance, repair and overhaul, energy, manufacturing, maritime, or other heavy industries.
• Preferred: Product marketing experience involving positioning, messaging frameworks, or sales enablement content.
• Preferred: Experience with design tools such as Canva for creating collateral.
• Preferred: Experience as an early go-to-market hire, ideally at a company with fewer than 50 employees, where you built the processes you used.

Success measures

• Specific targets will be calibrated with you during the first 30 days.
• Pipeline created and opportunities sourced.
• Qualified meetings booked and held per month.
• Meeting-to-opportunity conversion, which matters more than raw meeting count.
• Segment and messaging tests completed and the decisions resulting from them.
• Response speed to replies and inbound interest.
• CRM and signal hygiene, measured by the share of active accounts with an owner, a logged next step, and current signals.

How we work

• Prioritize quality over volume: four real conversations beat twelve tire-kickers.
• Research each recipient so every message demonstrates an understanding of their job.
• Test before scaling; retire an unsuccessful segment early rather than defending it for a quarter.
• Use plain language, lead with outcomes rather than technology, and avoid buzzwords.

Benefits

• Meaningful equity in a high-growth, venture-backed defense technology startup.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) plan.
• Paid parental leave.
• High visibility and meaningful impact through collaboration with world-class engineers and researchers in a high-ownership environment.