Bonsai’s mission is to help people find and buy the products they want, as soon as they realize they want them. We began in 2016 as a streetwear style and news app. Now we’re leading the market shift to content-driven commerce. We are helping publishers launch e-commerce as a new line of business. We already do this for over 200M+ monthly unique visitors on some of North America’s leading publishers, including BuzzFeed and Complex. We’ve been featured in the Wall Street Journal and Business Insider for leading the charge in a new wave of native commerce, but the opportunity is still largely untapped.
Our technology allows users to transact natively while browsing content. We make the journey from seeing a product to buying it possible in two taps. Our vision is to make this possible everywhere you discover products. For publishers, we provide a powerful revenue alternative to ads that also improves the user experience. For merchants, Bonsai allows them to capture customers while they browse content, right when purchasing intent is being formed.
Bonsai is growing rapidly, presenting new opportunities and challenges each day. On Monday, a tech giant might reach out and pitch us on a new use case for our technology. On Tuesday, we might get wind of a new competitor and need to do an in-depth competitive analysis. Wednesday could bring a new type of partnership we haven’t seen before, requiring us to develop a bespoke pricing model. A team might need extra ops help on Thursday ahead of their upcoming product launch. On Friday, we might decide we need to revise our model for valuing publisher leads to help the sales team better prioritize their outbound.
To help with this diverse set of challenges, we are seeking a scrappy, abnormally smart, quantitatively savvy person to work directly with our COO and our other business operations Specialists. You will conduct in-depth industry and competitive research, do short-term deployments onto different teams that need ops assistance, model the financial opportunity of new applications of our technology, and determine ways to improve how Bonsai operates. You will need to be entrepreneurial, an exceptional communicator, and independent. You will need to take ownership of Bonsai's growth and do whatever it takes to get the job done.
The Business operations Specialist will begin by shadowing our COO in meetings and taking on personal projects, ranging from researching new pricing models to recommending new methods of finding publisher leads. Once you’ve learned Bonsai inside and out, you’ll begin recommending your own projects based on your assessment of company risks and opportunities. You’re able to take a project from strategy through to execution independently.
What will I be doing?
- Audit, improve, and stand up new business processes to improve operational efficiency.
- Conduct research for strategic conversations with investors or partners.
- Conduct competitive and industry research, including SWOTs, financial analysis of competitors, and market sizing.
- Do short-term deployments on teams that need ops + research support. Sometimes you might need to fill in where we don’t have a hire yet, such as brokering and sizing up a large deal and then figuring out their operational implications.
- Model, propose changes to and test different pricing structures of our products, including both bespoke enterprise proposals and SaaS pricing tiers that.
- Find, model the opportunity of, and help test new applications of our technologies.
- Help determine how Bonsai should expand (ex new personas, new geographies, new product categories, etc.).
- Making recommendations on whether short term projects that you’ve been put on need to have hires made to own them based on the roadmap.
What do I need?
- Multiple years of experience in a high-paced work environment. You've already done operations at a high-performance startup and crushed it. Maybe you also some experience in management consulting that could be an asset.
- Experience in business operations at a startup that has multi-faceted sides to it. ie. a 2 side marketplace.
- Excellent communication skills. You can quickly synthesize copious amounts of information, identify important takeaways, and determine next steps.
- A self-starter mindset. You love being in the weeds and are known for rolling up your sleeves to get things done. You never let roadblocks get in the way of getting things done; the laws of physics govern the only limits to what you can do.
- Strong analytical skills. The term ‘quantitative rigour’ gets you excited. You love using data to help identify problems, discover opportunities, and substantiate your ideas. Familiarity with advanced Excel functions, such as array formulas, is expected.
- A project owner attitude. You are excited about being held accountable for your successes and failures. You will be responsible for your own projects for which you will own the results.
- An insatiable drive to make things better. While prioritization is paramount, no detail is too small to go unaddressed. You should continuously be looking at every process, tool, assumption, and script, and asking, “How can we make this better?”
- Time management and prioritization skills. Things change. The role requires someone who is used to juggling several tasks simultaneously and operating under uncertainty. You will need to work both hard and smart; one alone will not suffice.
Nice to have:
- A bachelor’s degree. Preferably in a quantitative field such as math, statistics, physics, chemistry, engineering, economics, computer science, operational research.
What to expect:
- Review - you’ll hear from us regardless.
- Intro Call - a quick call with our people team to discuss the role and learn who you are!
- An interview with senior team members - 45 minutes to go over your background, the role and Bonsai. Also, an excellent time for you to ask any questions you have.
- Take-Home Assessment - a realistic problem to solve on your own time.
- Virtual Interview - a 1.5-hour interview to meet the team, and your chance to interview us.
- Offer - Ideally, this is the part where we make the offer, you accept, and we all celebrate!
At Bonsai, we are committed to building and fostering a diverse and inclusive environment where our employees feel valued, heard, and supported. We believe that a commitment to diversity, inclusion and belonging enables us to do the best work of our lives - building the future of content and commerce! We strongly encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds, experience, and perspectives regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, age, citizenship, disability, and national origin.
Bonsai welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available upon request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the hiring and selection process. If you require accommodations or have any questions, please email us at accessibility@shopbonsai.ca.