Discern Living - Management Associate/Project Manager/EA to Founder

I am looking for motivated, pro-active, smart and resourceful folks to join the Discern Living team to help us get operational and rock the next success story in Ecomm in India for a ton of openings. Whats most important to us is CULTURE & ATTITUDE so if you are interested in working in an early-stage startup where you can have high-impact and learn a lot, then read on carefully.

I am looking to fill a specific role - a Management Associate. This individual will work closely with me in helping with a variety of tasks -- some of them will be very unsexy and painful, while others will give this individual a front and center view of the thought process, challenges, highs and lows of building a team, product, and company.

The role will be perfect for someone with about 2+ years of experience in consulting or banking and is looking at about 2-3 years of getting their hands dirty building something before going to a top tier business school. However, I'm open to evaluating a diverse range of candidates - I don't expect anyone to be an exact fit for the role but do expect that this individual will be able to grow into a great fit for the role.

Here are some reasons you may want to work at Discern Living:

You want to work in a company that is doing something that never has been done before - shop the look for home decor & virtual interior design services

You like solving problems that have never been solved before

You dislike bureaucracy and want to work in an organization that makes quick decisions and trusts its employees

You are excited about creating experiences for our users using technology

You have experienced the problem that we're trying to solve and want to be part of the solution

Here are some reasons that working at Discern Living may not be the best idea:

You find it difficult to keep yourself motivated to work. We don- t monitor your hours and time off and expect that you will keep your commitments to the team without us needing to micromanage you

You can- t handle plans changing fast

You need to constantly be told what to do and find it difficult to operate independently

Management Associate

You are applying for by far what will be one of the most important roles on the Discern Living team.You will be working closely with the Founder & CEO of Discern Living - this job would be an exciting opportunity for someone who is looking to contribute to building a company and get general management experience - it will set you up well for the future, especially if you're looking at applying to a top-tier business school in the next 2-3 years.

At a high level, you will be responsible for:

Building and developing team morale and culture

Making sure the wheels stay greased so that the rest of the team can stay focused on building the product and business

Performing and assisting the core team with business analysis, reporting, market sizing, process building, budgeting, reporting, and anything else they may need to make their lives easier.

Here's some of the things your role will entail:

Vendor and Customer Management: Dealing with vendors, assisting with client followup

General HR: Managing benefits/perks, payroll, composing job descriptions, on-boarding new hires, setting up employee reviews, scheduling vacation, building company culture

Product Management: Making sure things stay on track with product development, pre-empting and identifying bottlenecks and solving them before they become real problems, keeping track of core business, product and financial metrics

Financial and Legal: Budgeting, payment processing, performance reporting, process payments, reimbursements, etc while working with our accounting support

Organizing events: Helping with organizing internal as well as external events

Office management and administration: ordering food (snacks, drinks, lunches, etc) and office supplies, helping with booking travel for our team, etc

Qualities we will look for:

Excellent communication skills - written and oral

Pro-active

Strong analytic ability

Resourcefulness and creativity

Discretion and maturity

VERY IMPORTANT: Interested candidates must submit a short cover letter indicating why they feel they are suitable for this role and what motivates them to work in an early-stage startup.

We are unable to review and applications that do not have a specific cover letter attached as we receive 100s of applications from IIM Jobs.

Gautam Kitchlu
Founder & CEO, Discern Living