Chief of Staff to the CEO

⭐ About daydream

daydream builds growth marketing playbooks for the world’s fastest growing companies.

Note: This role requires candidates to be in-person, in-office 3 days per week in our Hayes Valley, San Francisco office.

We believe the future of growth marketing is one where companies pay for outcomes, rather than tools. Today, we leverage a combination of AI-enabled services + software to execute SEO growth playbooks for companies like Clay, Descript, and Beacons and dozens of others. In the future, we'll expand our capabilities across the entire growth marketing stack, encompassing all essential customer acquisition channels.

We've raised $6.2M from leading investors like First Round Capital, Basis Set Ventures, WndrCo, SOMA Capital and current and former Heads of Growth at companies like Notion, Airtable, Webflow and Dropbox as well as notable angels like Lenny Rachitsky and Eli Schwartz, Author of Product-Led SEO.

🔧 The problem we’re trying to solve

Every company needs to do two things:

1. Build a product.

2. Acquire customers.

There are three ways to acquire customers — sales, product-led growth, and growth marketing. Of these three, growth marketing is particularly hard to staff for because great internal talent is find (ex. in SEO, there are probably < 20 people who we would consider world-class), and time-consuming to ramp.

Then there’s the agencies, but agencies are often slow, lack strong technical talent, and in general are associated with poor quality of outcomes.

🧑‍💻 How we’re solving this problem

daydream is different — we’ve built a vertically integrated software + services stack with a singular goal in mind — deliver outstanding outcomes for every customer we service, repeatedly and consistently in a fraction of the time they expect. While we’ve started with SEO, we expect to expand to all other major growth marketing channels over the near future.

🧔🏽‍♂️ Who you’ll be working with

Hi there! 👋🏽 I’m Thenuka, the co-founder and CEO at daydream. This is a JD to be my Chief of Staff! Here’s a bit about me:

• Before founding daydream, I served as CEO of Flixed, where we drove 100K+ sign-ups to streaming brands like Disney, Hulu, HBO, and others purely using programmatic SEO. In many ways, this was a precursor to daydream. Hear the story about how my experiences running Flixed convinced me to found daydream here.

• Previously, I was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Hustle Fund and Chief of Staff to the COO at Pango, an Accel-backed cybersecurity company generating $100M+ in annual revenue.

• My work philosophy centers on quality. I find my deepest satisfaction in creating products and experiences that redefine expectations, rather than engaging in busywork, checking things off for the sake of it, or maintaining appearances of "being productive."

• While daydream's rapid scaling and high performance standards remain priorities, I'm committed to fostering a culture built on respect, trust, and curiosity rather than fear.

• This approach requires dedicating time to deep, focused work on select high-impact areas—a key reason I'm hiring a Chief of Staff.

• From a communication standpoint, I prefer direct feedback, batched async communication, and in-person meetings for more strategic discussions.

• Some personal tidbits: I lived in a Zen temple for 2 years and studied Mandarin Chinese for over 5 years (ask me about competing in a Chinese singing contest!).

• Beyond work, I enjoy reading, walking, and exploring San Francisco's diverse restaurant scene.

👷🏻‍♀️ What you’ll be doing

As Chief of Staff to the CEO, your time will be spent across three key areas:

• Lead all special projects (60%): You will be the designated lead on a broad class of initiatives described as “special projects” — these will typically be company-inflecting initiatives that you’ll tackle hand-in-hand with me, the co-founder and CEO. You’ll need to be skilled at the 0 → 1 phase, after which you’ll hand off each project to a dedicated owner. Examples of special projects include:

  • Running point on our in-person GTM efforts, and create a dinner series for CMOs.

  • Build a network of other AI x GTM founders that we can co-promote events with.

• Network management (20%): You’ll be responsible for leveraging our investor network to accelerate projects throughout daydream and satisfy key asks, as well as handling investor updates + communications.

• Keep me unblocked (20%): You’ll be in my inbox, and receive a 360-degree view of everything happening within the company. You’ll be responsible for handling any requests that don’t directly require my input, doing preparatory work ahead of my meetings, and joining meetings in certain cases as well.

🤓 What you’ll gain

• A rolodex of the world’s best growth leaders — We work with the most talented founders and Heads of Growth, and you’ll meet and build relationships with them as a core part of your role.

• A portfolio of company-inflecting experiences — You’ll be expected to stand up new functions from 0 → 1, build partnerships with C-level executives, and tackle a variety of short, but high-impact projects. You should feel like you have a new job every 3 months!

• Unrestricted access to daydream most important stakeholders — This includes our investors, customers, and key partners for the business.

✅ You’ll be an excellent fit if you

• Are organized and detail-oriented, with excellent written communication skills. A huge part of this role involves corresponding with daydream’s closest stakeholders (investors, customers, employees), so the highest standard of communication is expected here.

• Excited about building relationships, meeting people in-person, and essentially being an extension of me! Loving the serendipity associated with meeting people is a must!

• Have prior experience in growth marketing. Our customer is often a founder or Head of Growth, so the ability to directly empathize with them is important.

• Able to context switch quickly across multiple initiatives, projects, and deadlines while communicating skillfully and proactively throughout the entire process.

• Have tolerance for the more mundane aspects of the job, like processing my inbox and assisting with planning events for our team, handling the occasional office management request, and so forth.

❌ This role won’t be a good fit if you are

• Struggle to maintain focus on routine administrative tasks like inbox processing and calendar management. While most of your time will involve strategic projects, reliably handling these essential administrative duties remains important.

• Prefer a strictly 9-5 schedule. This role occasionally requires evening and weekend work to address urgent priorities.

• Feel uncomfortable navigating new projects with minimal direction and embracing ambiguity.

👤 Examples of profiles that may be a good fit

• Venture capitalists with 3-5 years of experience looking to experience the operational side of a fast-growing, venture-backed company. You can apply your relationship-building and networking talents differently—driving customer acquisition and partnerships rather than deal flow.

• Growth marketers with 3-5 years of experience seeking to leverage existing expertise while expanding into a broader portfolio of projects and responsibilities.

• Aspiring founders who want comprehensive insight into startup operations as the company scales from seed funding through Series A and beyond.

🏦 Compensation

The compensation range for this role is $140K-$180K per year + generous equity in daydream, along with full coverage of medical, vision, and dental insurance.