Head of Business Development
About OpenRouter:
OpenRouter is the world’s first and largest marketplace for LLMs, rapidly scaling to serve developers, enterprises, and AI-driven businesses. As demand grows, we’re seeing significant inbound interest from larger customers—but we don’t yet have the infrastructure or strategy in place to fully capitalize on these opportunities.
We’re looking for a Head of Business Development to build and own our enterprise and strategic partnerships function from the ground up. You’ll take an active role in shaping our pricing models, go-to-market strategy, and enterprise sales approach, while working closely with leadership to turn inbound interest into scalable revenue streams.
This is not a quota-carrying sales role—this is a true business development position focused on strategy, monetization, and partnerships, rather than direct outbound sales. You will define how we engage and work with larger customers, and put in place the processes and structures that will perhaps enable a sales team in the future.
This is a high-impact, high-autonomy role, ideal for someone who thrives in ambiguity, can turn insights into action, and wants to play a key role in defining our business model as we scale.
What You’ll Do:
Shape Our Monetization Strategy: Evaluate how we can evolve our usage-based pricing into SaaS/subscription models that align with customer needs and drive revenue growth.
Develop an Enterprise Engagement Process: Build out our contracting, bulk pricing, and discounting strategies to make it easier for larger customers to work with us.
Turn Inbound Demand into Actionable Offerings: Get on calls with potential customers, understand their needs, and translate those insights into new product offerings, pricing models, or service tiers – working with engineering, design, and finance to bring them to life.
Define and Prioritize Market Needs: Identify what’s most critical for our target customers (e.g., SOC 2 compliance, security certifications, contract flexibility, custom SLAs) and help the company prioritize investments accordingly.
Unlock the Value of Our Data Assets: We have unique datasets and insights that may be valuable to customers and partners—help us determine whether these should be monetized, productized, or bundled into strategic deals.
Lead Strategic Partnerships: Identify and structure partnership opportunities with AI providers, infrastructure vendors, and key industry players to expand OpenRouter’s reach.
Help Land High-Profile Customers: Find and engage marquee customers who can validate our enterprise offering and serve as flagship case studies.
Who You Are:
Background in business development, strategy, or partnerships—experience in enterprise SaaS, AI, developer tools, or cloud infrastructure is a strong plus.
5+ years of experience, ideally coming from consulting, venture-backed startups, enterprise strategy, or a similar analytical and execution-driven role.
Highly analytical & strategic—you can break down complex business models, assess monetization opportunities, and drive execution on the most impactful opportunities.
Excellent communicator and relationship builder—comfortable talking to technical customers, senior stakeholders, and external partners.
Deep interest in AI, LLMs, and developer infrastructure—you enjoy playing with AI tools and can engage in technical conversations.
Thrive in ambiguity—you love figuring things out from scratch and enjoy working in a high-growth, fast-changing startup environment.
Why OpenRouter?
High-impact role: You’ll be shaping the business model and go-to-market strategy for one of the most exciting AI infrastructure companies.
True business development: This is not a quota-carrying sales role—it’s about strategy, monetization, and partnerships, not just closing deals.
Deep involvement in AI and dev tools: You’ll be working with cutting-edge AI providers and developer-focused infrastructure.
Join early, grow fast: As an early team member, you’ll have a massive opportunity to shape the company’s future.
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At OpenRouter, we're looking for a dynamic Head of Business Development to join our team and help us harness the growing demand for our innovative LLM marketplace. This isn’t just another role; it's a unique chance to build and lead our enterprise and strategic partnerships from the ground up. You’ll be actively involved in shaping strategies that drive revenue, working alongside our leadership to convert incoming interest into scalable revenue streams. Your work will have a direct impact on how we engage with larger clients, with responsibilities such as developing effective pricing models and creating seamless engagement processes. You’re not just filling a position—you’ll define our approaches and processes, paving the way for potential sales teams in the future. If you're someone who thrives in high-autonomy environments and can turn insights into actionable strategies, then this opportunity at OpenRouter is tailor-made for you. Here, you'll shape our monetization strategy, delve into customer needs, unlock the value of our data assets, and lead strategic partnerships to expand our influence in the market. With a deep interest in AI and developer infrastructure, you'll be at the forefront of innovation, helping us navigate the exciting world of AI tools and enterprise solutions. Join us in this high-impact role that promises both challenges and rewards as we define the future of AI-driven business together!
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