Category Lead

Whatnot•Los Angeles, CA

5d•$167,000 - $215,000•Remote

About The Position

Whatnot is the largest live shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. Whether it's trading cards, fashion, electronics, or live plants, our sellers are building real businesses across hundreds of categories. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people here are shaping how an entirely new industry develops. As a remote co-located team, we're inspired by our values and anchored in hubs across the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Australia. We move fast, stay close to our users, and focus on the work that drives the most impact. We're one of the fastest growing marketplaces and were recently named the #1 Best Startup Employer in America by Forbes. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our news and engineering blogs and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce. About the Categories & Expansion Team The Categories & Expansion team owns Whatnot's portfolio of categories and the growth of the sellers and buyers in each community. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people on this team decide how an entirely new industry develops, category by category.

Requirements

7+ years of experience working in a fast-paced, client-facing role in high-output environments, such as: Strategy Consulting, Private Equity, or partnerships at a fast-paced tech company
A player/coach who gets in the weeds: scrappy, comfortable in a highly ambiguous environment, and no job is too small
A proven leader who has managed and developed a team
Deeply analytical and comfortable manipulating data to find and act on business insight
Strong communicator who can frame and explain insight for a variety of audiences
Fluency with AI tools to sharpen problem-solving, analysis, and execution across a wide range of business challenges
A passion for our mission: you live and breathe the needs of our communities and work relentlessly to improve their experience on Whatnot

Nice To Haves

Experience working on a marketplace or a two-sided platform
Experience or passion for buying and selling in online marketplace communities
Proficiency with SQL & dashboards

Responsibilities

Own the strategy, growth, and P&L for one of Whatnot's largest or highest growth categories.
Set the strategic vision, decide where to invest, and pull the levers across Account Management, Sales, Marketing, Partnerships, and Product to hit it.
Define the strategy by mapping the market, digging into the data, and talking to sellers and buyers to build a clear point of view on how to scale your category sustainably.
Turn strategy into an action plan against the category's biggest opportunities and headwinds, and bring the right cross-functional partners along to execute it.
Lead the execution by managing a team of direct and dotted-line reports across Account Management, Sales, Marketing, and Partnerships to onboard and grow sellers, activate influencers, and run community events.
Source and close the highest-priority partnerships in the category.
Own the metrics that define success (GMV, buyer/seller retention, etc.) and use them to prioritize key focus areas across your team.
Drive outsized growth by identifying category unlocks and working cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Operations to ship the solutions that step-change growth.
Propose and run tests with leadership to learn fast, and take on the biggest opportunities/risks as an IC.
Be the voice of your category by building relationships with your top sellers and buyers, understanding their perspectives, and ensuring the product meets their needs.
Carry our culture by coaching your team to deeply understand the business and product so they can pitch sellers and grow the community.
Partner with other Category Leads to keep leveling up how the whole CatEx team executes.