Sr. Director / VP of Marketing

Good marketing tells a compelling story, allows companies of any size to make their voice heard, exposes consumers to products they never knew existed, and magic-tastically drives exponential action that’s larger than the spend. 

Misen is looking for a Sr. Director or VP of Marketing to grow our audience with deep segmentation and powerful content, taking incremental bets on everything from programmatic ad tweaks to OOH brand marketing - and anything in between.

I’m Michael, Misen’s CEO; I’ll be your sounding board, protector, and VC - in that order. Because we’ll be working so closely together, I think we’ll get a better fit with a JD that’s written as a personal match and not a soulless list of qualifications. Your first call back will be from me, and we’ll nerd out just 5 minutes in. I can’t wait to meet you.

The ideal candidate is someone who is all in:

• Needs a brand that moves faster and is willing to take incrementally bigger risks.

• Wants to market products that customers don’t just like, they love.

• Has a burning desire to build and defend an industry leading LTV.

• Assumes very little, questions nearly everything, and uses data to back up decisions even if it’s after a gut-based test.

• Is excited to take on a lot. In the next 90 days, we're launching a new Kickstarter campaign, our 1st retail partner, search and social at scale. In the next 120 days we’re adding 10 new products. The most exciting stuff we can’t even share publicly - yet :)

Why are there two titles?

We value “show me” over “tell me” at Misen. This means that we only hire those who can both think strategically and do the work. That hybrid muscle usually atrophies as marketers progress in their careers, so we’re looking for a Sr. Director that wants to be a VP, or a VP who wants to be a CMO. 

Who is Misen?

Our mission is to create unreal cookware for real people - at an unreal price.  We believe a better tool makes any job easier; our thoughtfully designed and premium-quality kitchen tools make cooking easier, less stressful, and more fun.

Our name comes from ‘mise en place’ — a culinary term that means “to put in place.” Chefs use the term to describe the process of setting up their stations before service. Misen is an ode to mise en place; better cooking through proper preparation with quality tools.

We are approachable, innovative, and honest.

We move quickly, deliberately, and back up our decisions with data.

We listen to our customers and employees; without them we would be nothing.

We believe in maintaining a profitable business and meeting customers where they are. Let’s take risks pursuing the latter, but never at the risk of the former. 

What you’ll do at Misen:

• Think like a hybrid brand and performance marketer. Big ‘ol brand campaign that’s un-trackable? I'm sure you can find a way to get metrics. Split testing has turned a landing page into a franken-page of brand guide violations? You can bring it back in line without tanking conversion. 

• Own CAC and LTV both projected and actual. Mediocrity hides in averages, so we have no blended target CAC or LTV. Do the TikTok metrics make sense for TikTok? Great. Don’t care that it doesn’t match paid search, as long as each independently makes sense.

• Set strategy, goals, and execute against them for the following channels and more:

  • Email & SMS

  • Organic and paid search

  • Organic and paid social

  • Brand marketing including press, partnerships, Linkedin, OOH, TV, Podcast

  • Affiliate marketing and partnership merchandising

  • Retail and retail support

• Develop and build upon our current mix of internal and external resources for paid and organic marketing.

• Drive incremental CRO gains every month. These can be small, but they add up and the better our funnel, the greater our appetite for risk can be. We’ll even give you the freedom to bend our brand guidelines in the interest of conversion. 

• Be able to zoom in and out quickly. This has proven to be a highly effective strategy for Misen making us an ill fit for anyone who can’t switch gears quickly or doesn’t know (or have a desire to know) the details intimately.

• Ask “show me” instead of “tell me,” sharing data directly in native platforms instead of orphaned and doctored up in slide decks or spreadsheets. This mindset shift helps avoid miscommunication, reduces translation time, and dramatically improves insights.

• You will be expected to both take risks with some campaigns (like our next Kickstarter) and balance that with others that build slowly and deliberately through programmatic tweaks.

We think you will need:

• 4+ years managing online marketing campaigns and teams driving $15M+ in annual revenue.

• 6+ years deep in the weeds in any one marketing channel. Could be search, OOH, paid, partnership, or any other one. This will help you manage the areas where you don’t have years of execution level experience. 

• 4+ years managing a team of 5+ and at least 2+ years managing a remote team

• Ability to zoom in and out quickly. You are able to quickly understand and solve a customer issue over email as easily as you can synthesize information across multiple channels and draw conclusions on product and process change.

• To be fun and a good human being. Off-the-carts confidence is great; ego is not.

• A deep understanding of technology. Software remains the most efficient way to free up our time to be creative and strategic; it is critical that you understand it intimately or have the capacity to do so.

• Deep brand awareness. You can rattle off which brands you love, why, and recall specific interaction and the way they made you feel. More than anything else, you want to help others feel this same way about Misen.

But rigid lists never work when hiring, so if you have some of these and think you’re a fit, we want to hear from you. 

Is this the right opportunity for you?

• At Misen your authority will always exceed your responsibility. We rely on defined processes to catch our mistakes, but push all employees to take intelligent risks in an effort to continuously improve our customer experience. You must be comfortable taking risks and owning both successes – and failures. 

• We achieve great results by remaining informed and moving fast which does not create a “comfort zone” in this – or any – position. You must be happy to trade comfort for continuous improvement and the satisfaction it produces both for our customers and ourselves.