VP Marketing

Job Description

Why Write of Passage?

We’re looking for the brightest talent to join us in creating the best online writing school in the world.

Over 1,000 students from all over the world have learned a system for publishing quality ideas, finding people they can finally connect with, and supercharging their careers through writing on the Internet. Our graduates are using online writing to build audiences, launch businesses, and live a life they never thought possible.

Write of Passage is now considered the gold standard for community-driven, cohort-based, online courses. And, we’re growing. Our vision is to build a global media platform with writing instruction for the 21st century while delivering the best educational experience in the world.

Head of Marketing

We know what works to sell people on Write of Passage, our brand and growth revolves around our founder, David Perell. He publishes great content online and builds his audience; we then convert them into paying students.

We now need to go further, faster. To supercharge growth we need to amplify David’s voice through the Write of Passage platform. At the same time we need to develop an independent (but connected) brand for Write of Passage itself.

We have the reach (more than half a million followers across platforms), the resources (including a state-of-the-art production studio and team), we have the creativity, we have the passion, we need a skilled marketer to turn all of that into a kick-ass plan to triple our revenue in the next two years.

As our Head of Marketing, you’ll be responsible for:

• All revenue at Write of Passage, including representing all revenue-related activities as part of the Senior Team. Your work will be a creative assortment, stretching across email, social media, podcasts, articles, and videos.
• Channeling bold visions into tactical action items.
• Taking the Internet by storm with passionate, educational, and awe-inspiring content.
• Building a rabid fan-base of Write of Passage die-hards.
• Getting your hands dirty. This is not a hands-off management role; you will be expected to be somewhat hands-on with our platforms such as Google Adwords, YouTube, Hubspot and Salesforce.
• Managing our team of creatives: a Creative Director, Editor-in-Chief, and full-time team of video producers, editors, and writers.
• Driving revenue growth (we’re ambitious and have both the product and the budget to pull it off).
• Leading data-led acquisition strategies for Write of Passage, including uncovering creative, non-traditional, and new methods of acquiring users.

What we’re looking for in this candidate:

• You love writing and believe that writing on the Internet can change lives.
• You’re somebody who can take what we’ve learned, formulate a plan, and deliver on it with levels of calmness and clarity that soothe those around you in a balm of confidence in your ability.
• Must have strong quantitative chops; we already have the artists who can wax about the course; we need more left brained systematic, data-driven analysis types. We don't want someone who ONLY has an opinion, but someone who runs the tests, crunches the data and is very data-driven.
• You love taking existing ideas and seeing them through to their full potential.
• You are warm and kind whilst not afraid to deliver direct feedback. You index both up and to the right on the Radical Candor matrix.
• A marketer who has a clear track record of success in internet marketing.
• Someone with sensibilities around the creator economy, content-marketing, and what makes people buy something on the Internet.

What we’re not looking for:

• Somebody who only focuses on SEO and paid ads.
• Pursuing every possible opportunity immediately by shooting from the hip. We love a good plan and tip our caps to shrewd prioritization. We need to focus on doing less, but better.
• A creative who insists on coming up with every idea and doing everything themselves.
• Somebody to redesign our visual brand.
• If you need a big team to get things done, this isn’t the role for you.

Why we think this job is great:

• This is not a cookie-cutter marketing role in an established industry. This is the opportunity to flip tables in a new industry and change the way writing is taught. Forever.
• We have three years of financial runway, which is extremely rare for a company of our size and scope.
• Write of Passage is a high-end, quality brand. We are the Four Seasons of writing instruction. We aren’t just in the business of education. We’re also in the business of hospitality.
• You’ll have tons of autonomy. We’re allergic to micromanagement. Leadership will set clear goals and big-picture visions, but everybody can get the job done as they wish, so long as they’re aligned with the direction of the company.
• We don’t just talk about our values; we are obsessed with living them. Most of our team started as a student in the course. We live with Hearts on Fire, which means that we care deeply and have an earnest commitment to excellence.
• You’ll have goals, resources, and a budget. How you execute and deliver is up to you.
• The whole team is 100% remote. We always have been. Working from home is our normal and we’re amazing at it, but we also do team retreats in beautiful places like Mexico, Costa Rica, and the Bahamas.
• We stand for excellence. We judge ourselves by our own standards, not the outside world’s. In service of our students, we must continually resist the quiet creep of mediocrity.

Job requirements