COO (Chief Operating Officer)

About Mindstone

Enterprise AI enablement company, building the future of work for non-technical professionals. $1m+ Q3 revenue (.5% vs target, 10x from last year), Profitable, venture-backed.

We live (& work) in the future ourselves, to clear a path and build for, train and enable companies like Pearson, Home Depot, Hyatt, and Lufthansa on practical AI, while running the world's largest practical AI community (30+ cities).

If you want to see how companies operate and what the world of work looks like 24 months before everyone else sees it, we are it.

Culture

Our vision is "to unlock humanity's potential by bringing personal and professional growth to every individual."

We live in the future, we challenge ourselves and our colleagues and like to tinker. We get things done and thrive on having an impact. We like to say we celebrate success, but too often move on to the next hurdle before that happens.

We believe the next few years of AI development will fundamentally change the way we live and work, and intend to play our part.

What We Need

Hands on COO who owns business operations currently stretched across the founding team. Not someone who needs teams to execute - we need someone who can do the work whilst building scalable processes.

Core Areas (in priority order) Finance & Operations (30%)

• Own finance function and external finance team relationship
• Manage cash flow, invoicing, collections (currently a gap)
• Budgeting and financial planning
• Business metrics and reporting

Sales Operations (25%)

• Own operational side of sales (not sales leadership)
• Pipeline management, data enrichment, CRM (HubSpot)
• Customer success and upsell processes
• Coordinate with external sales team and internal go to market (Marketing, CS, Tech)

Coach Management (20%)

• Manage 10+ global coaches delivering programmes
• Coach onboarding, performance, scheduling
• Scale delivery model (10-11 sessions potentially 20+)

Strategic Partnership (15%)

• Counterweight to CEO on go to market decisions
• Challenge thinking on priorities (community value, post programme offerings)
• Bring experience from scaling similar businesses
• Contribute to quarterly planning

People & Culture (10%)

• Light touch people management (team of :11, potentially :17)
• Compensation conversations and frameworks
• Hiring support (less critical given sales agency partnership)
• Maintain culture whilst building operational excellence

Success Looks Like 6 months

• CEO freed from operational sales work (0.5-1 day/week back)
• CTO out of finance email hell
• Clean pipeline with enrichment, automation, upsell running
• Coach management running smoothly with clear metrics
• Cash flow and collections process eliminating invoice buildup
• Clear financial visibility for confident investment decisions

18 months

• Revenue scaled 2-3x with operational efficiency
• Recurring revenue (AI Coach) contributing materially
• Sales team independent (CEO in strategic deals only)
• Post programme consulting launched (if strategic)
• Team at :17 with clear operational frameworks
• Positioned for acquisition or continued independent scale

Requirements Essential

• 8+ years operating experience scaling B2B SaaS or services through £5m-£20m
• Hands on operator - can own finance, sales ops, people without teams (at this stage)
• Enterprise B2B sales operations experience (CRM, pipeline management)
• Financially literate - comfortable owning P&L, cash flow, data driven decisions
• Strategic thinker who challenges CEO constructively
• Comfortable in high growth, ambiguous environments

Highly Desirable

• EdTech, professional services, or training/coaching business experience
• Built scalable service delivery models
• 10-50 person startup experience during growth phase
• Supported sales scale from founder led to team led

Cultural Fit

• Scrappy and resourceful (hire minimally, automate maximally)
• Direct communicator who tells it straight
• Comfortable with AI first operating model (we practice what we preach)
• Values humans over resources
• Excited by unlocking 60%+ productivity gains through practical AI

Benefits What We Offer

• £120k £180k base + meaningful equity
• London based, hybrid
• Direct influence at critical inflection point
• Work with experienced founders (CEO: 6x founder, ex CPTO SuperAwesome acquired by Epic Games)
• Proven product market fit, blue chip clients
• Profitable, venture backed, choosing our own path