Director of Acquisition, Advocacy

Who We Are

The Farmer’s Dog is the fastest growing pet health service company in the US, and was born from a mission to change the landscape of pet health, providing dogs and their humans with honest, smart, and simple care – a fresh proposition in an industry riddled with manipulative and misleading marketing. We’re starting by radically improving the $100 billion pet food market, replacing bulk bags of highly-processed pellets with a personalized subscription service that sends healthy, freshly-made dog food, balanced by top veterinary nutritionists, directly to customers’ doors. Our ultimate goal is to create innovative, honest, and delightful experiences across all aspects of pet care, and we believe our direct-to-consumer business model, holistic approach to growth, and dynamic and forward-thinking culture uniquely position us to shepherd this backwards industry into the future. 

To date, The Farmer’s Dog has delivered hundreds of millions of meals nationwide and raised over $150M in funding to help us build a company as healthy as the dogs who are eating those meals. Join us as we continue to develop ways of bringing peace of mind to our customers, health to their companions, and much-needed change to the way people feed and care for their pets.

#LongLiveDogs

What We Stand For and Where You’ll Come In

We have big ambitions, our mission is to give dog lovers true peace of mind by helping them do the best for their dogs – this will require us to completely reimagine how we care for our dogs and drive meaningful shifts in an industry that is desperate for change. We don’t believe this is possible by implementing “best practices” or operating how the rest of the industry operates. 

That’s why we’re looking for a highly innovative, strategic, and principles-driven Director of Acquisition, Advocacy to build and scale programs via flywheels and to drive sustainable, long-term growth for The Farmer’s Dog. Reporting into our VP of Acquisition, your job will be to take existing programs to a new level of innovation and scale (i.e. customer referral & partnerships), build growth engines out of valuable existing assets (Digest & content), and identify and grow moats that drive subscribers both today and long-term. You’ll have the opportunity to take the foundation we have in place (including an existing team of high-performing operators) and evolve it to establish The Farmer’s Dog as the leading trusted pet care brand and the best option for dogs. 

What do we believe is important to achieve those goals? Where do we expect you to have an impact?

One Team: We don’t think of ourselves as “Acquisition Marketers”, “Engineers”, “Data Analysts”, or “Product Managers”. Beyond denoting skill sets and areas of expertise, we don’t think departments matter. We’d rather align ourselves to the goals we’re working to achieve and make sure we have necessary subject matter expertise to drive meaningful impact. We strive to orient ourselves around customer problems TOGETHER – getting the right people, with the right context, in the right rooms/Zooms to solve problems holistically. 

We are skeptical about everything and precious about nothing: Ideas can and should come from anywhere, and we aren’t tied to our own.  We proactively source input.  We talk to our customers and leads regularly and are quick to change course if we know there’s a better or more impactful way to solve problems.   

We consider the customer journey in all of our decisions:  We know that no interaction exists in a silo and therefore understand how important every single one is.  We ensure our strategy sets prospective and new customers up for success and drives long-term retention.  We answer questions and address problems early and proactively.  We understand the value of different channels, initiatives, and messages and know how to articulate impact and advocate for prioritization holistically.  

We execute for impact: We don’t subscribe to “best practices” or “industry KPIs”. We’re uninterested in how we compare to “benchmarks”; instead we orient ourselves around being the best we can possibly be. Similarly, we don’t subscribe to rigid or classical expectations of roles – i.e. acquisition is hyper-focused on improving customer retention and experience.   

What Your Work Will Entail:

One of the amazing things about not subscribing to the traditional and classic definitions of roles is that we expect you to have an active hand in shaping this role. You should come in ready to listen and focus on seeking context, and also be ready to form and share a vision, feedback, and ideas. The below is intentionally open-ended.

• Lead and develop an existing high-impact team responsible for scaling and improving many of our programs, including Advocacy & Content/SEO.  You are excellent at leading through others, have high expectations, are direct and empathetic with feedback, and are eager to continuously surpass our goals and re-define ‘best-in-class’.
• Drive massive and sustainable scale of 1:1 advocacy programs (including customer referral and industry partnerships) as well as substantial improvements to conversion and impact through low-cost content channels (including Digest and landing pages).  Balance short term impact with long term growth.  Model and communicate the value and impact of all initiatives for effective prioritization.  
• Champion a thorough experimentation culture within your function that balances and includes incremental building and big bets.  OKRs are designed with this mindset.
• Build a data-driven and high decision-quality culture. Both individually and collectively dive deep in our data (including talking to customers & leads) to uncover insights that allow us to methodically remove friction and increase conversion rate across key segments. 

We're Excited About You Because 

• You have demonstrated your ability to build and manage both 0 →1 and large scale growth programs for consumer businesses (especially excited about you if you have demonstrated excellent execution of 1:1 at scale).  You’ve done this in a holistic, customer-focused manner.  
• You are an exceptional people manager.  You expect a lot, but you support your team along the way.  You empower your reports and create cultures and ceremonies/feedback loops so that everyone can and should operate with autonomy.  You encourage feedback and debate from your function and across all levels.  You are passionate about developing talent.  
• You are a maximizer - you continue to set the bar higher. 
• You lead through others - you don’t need to be the one to ‘do all the things’ to have an outsized impact.
• You thrive in high pressure, high stakes environments. You have natural drive and you work hard.  You maintain early stage startup intensity at any scale. 
• You’re not afraid to disagree, and yet you can also comfortably admit when you were wrong.  
• You are skeptical, peek around corners effectively and continuously, and you are right the first time most of the time.

About The Growth Team 

We have five principles that describe our approach:

• Holistic thinking: We know that nothing exists in a silo.
• Disciplined prioritization: We need to bring perspective, clarity and guidance to the team.
• Data-driven decision-making: We use first principles and are skeptical. We establish context.
• Proactive collaboration: We build vast common knowledge and encourage synchronous, streamlined work from our colleagues and diversity in problem-solving.
• Execute for impact: We are responsible for the growth of the business and the perception of our brand. We are resilient, accountable and relentless.

Office Guidelines

The office is open and available for all Monday through Friday. We ask all team members to be in office a minimum of 2-3 days a week to build a collaborative and invested environment to foster our unique in-person culture we are proud to have. This office policy is subject to change at company discretion.

Our DEI Philosophy:

Our company’s mission is rooted in deep, genuine care for dogs – and for the people who love them. As an organization we are full of individuals who are unique in many ways, but all united in a mission of providing true peace of mind to dog lovers everywhere. Fixing this industry and improving the lives of pets and their people will be a difficult, decades-long endeavor. We believe the best use of our time, energy, and resources as a collective team is to focus on this mission, and on supporting our team to do their best work and be their best selves. In support of this we’re committed to hiring and supporting a diverse workforce, and investing in internal structures, opportunities, hiring/promotions processes, and training that create and sustain an inclusive team. We strive to provide an experience at TFD that will be invested, meaningful and memorable as we progress on the journey to reimagine how we feed and care for our pets.

A Few of Our Best Benefits

• Dog-friendly office in Greenwich Village
• Market-competitive compensation and equity packages
• Comprehensive Healthcare, Dental, and Vision
• Company sponsored mental health benefit and coaching through Modern Health
• 12 week paid parental leave
• Competitive 401k plan with company match
• Flexible PTO 
• Discounted fresh food for your pup
• Your pet interrupting video calls (and in-person meetings) is now a feature, not a bug

We commit to building a competitive compensation package and company environment for all individuals to thrive. We believe in competitive base compensation rooted in location specific market data and performance along with equity ownership in the company that allows every team member to build their personal wealth as the company grows, just as much as we believe in fostering a culture that supports our team members personally, professionally, and holistically. For this role the anticipated hiring base compensation range is $190,000-$205,000 USD Annual and the compensation offered will include a robust market competitive package of base, bonus and equity. In addition to your base compensation offer you will also receive equity ownership in the company. More information about the value of this equity will be shared at the time of offer. This range is representative of NYC Market Data if you are applying to this role outside of the NYC area the range may change.