[Techne] | Fractional contractor, output-based (not tracked by hours), with a path to full-time in-house | Remote, with regular monthly travel required for in-person work from any one of our three hubs: Boulder/Denver, Providence/Boston, or New Orleans | USD

Focus: Content is how people find out Beacon exists, and how they decide it's worth inviting their friends to. You own that engine — what gets made, who makes it, and whether it turns into activated circles. Paid tests, partnerships, and the invite loop still report through you, but they're in service of what the content proves is working.

The mission
We're building something that moves people off their phones and back into their neighborhoods. Our first version, Beacon, lets you tell the people you actually know, "I'm going to the farmers market, find me there." It only works if your friends are on it. We are starting with mothers in our pilot hub because they are the center of the local social graph. If it works there, we move to the next city.

We can build a great product and still fail if nobody's friends are using it, or if nobody outside our pilot hub ever hears what this actually is. This role exists so that doesn't happen.

What you will own

• Content, as the top of the funnel. Short vertical video is the acquisition channel — it's how this spreads before the invite loop ever gets a chance to. You decide what gets made, who makes it, and what it's trying to prove — not just "what's happening in town" but content built to convert a viewer into a circle. You select and brief creators, and you're accountable for view-to-join conversion, not view count.
• Circles, fed by content. The product works when existing groups — a school grade, a team, a neighborhood — move onto it. Content is now the main way you find and warm up the connectors who bring their circles in. Right now, this is ten ambassadors in our pilot hub. By February, it needs to be a playbook any city can run without us.
• The invite loop. We don't do follower counts or social proof. The only way we grow is through direct invites. You're responsible for how many people actually accept those invites, and for making sure content is feeding that flow with people who are primed to say yes. You'll work with the product lead on every screen that touches it.
• Paid acquisition, as a secondary lever. Meta and Instagram tests, mostly built on your best-performing content. This is a bridge, not the foundation. We run these against a strict cost ceiling with a "kill rule" if they don't perform.
• Partnerships, as a secondary lever. Organizations with active audiences — schools, charities, local groups. You open the door, structure the deal, and measure if their people actually show up. Content you've already made is often the thing that gets you the meeting.
• The scorecard. CAC by content piece and by creator, view-to-join conversion, and blended CAC across channels. You publish these numbers weekly. This scorecard decides where next month's money and creator hours go, and which creators get more briefs.

Key outcomes (what success looks like)
You're inheriting a plan that's already in motion for September and October. Your job is to take it over and make it better. You will also have access to our copyrwriters and a small production team to execute your vision(s)

• By December 15, 2026: A content engine that can point to specific pieces driving specific circle joins — not just views. 12 to 15 active circles in Boulder, Providence, Boston, or New Orleans with at least 40% of members accepting invites. The scorecard is live and being used for board evaluations.
• By January 31, 2027: A finished content and creator playbook for moving into a second city. We need to see at least one active circle in a new market, sourced primarily through content, where you weren't physically on the ground.
• By February 28, 2027: Content is the clear largest source of activated users, with paid and partnerships running consistently inside cost limits alongside it, all documented. You've built a solid list of local creators, ambassadors, and partners for the full launch.
• Ongoing: No "mystery" users. If we can't say where a user came from — including which piece of content — they don't count.

Candidate profile

• Content operator. You have built or run a content engine that grew a real audience and converted it into something — signups, members, customers, attendees. You've managed creators or made the work yourself. You know the difference between a video that gets views and one that gets people to act, and you can point to numbers that prove it. Ideally, you've done this for a product where the user brings the next user, and you know what an invite loop is and how content feeds it.You must also have:
• Fluency in short vertical video as a distribution medium, either making it yourself or directing people who do. You know what makes a 20-second clip about a farmers market travel and what makes it look like an ad.
• Comfort being measured. You will be held to content-sourced circle activation, K, and cost per occasion, published weekly. If you prefer to be judged on reach and impressions, this is the wrong role.
• A record of closing. Content that shipped and converted, partnerships signed, ambassadors recruited. Not "worked on" or "supported."
• Proximity to the audience or a demonstrated ability to earn it fast. For example, you do not need to be a mother in one of our pilot hubs. You need to be someone a mother there would take a call from and then text her friends about.
• The ability to work alongside a product team and argue with them about screens. Growth in this product lives inside the invite flow, and you need to be in that conversation, not downstream of it.
• Comfort with a fractional, output-based arrangement now, with real interest in going full-time in-house as this proves out and scales.
• Dream-applicant shorthand: low-budget, culturally fluent, creator-led content that feels handmade and specific rather than produced — clever enough to stop a scroll, thoughtful enough to convert it into something real, not just views.

What else you own
Everything below exists to make the content engine work — the same voice and story have to hold across every surface the content touches.

• Brand. You own the brand system once the name clears trademark: identity, design direction, and how it shows up in creator content, on the site, in ads, and in the product. You brief designers and agencies; you do not need to be one.
• Voice. You write the voice guide and you enforce it, starting with creator briefs and ad copy. Every invite text, push notification, landing page, creator brief and ad reads like the same person wrote it, and that person is not a startup. The product's own copy sets the tone (short, plain, no engagement bait); you extend it to everything outside the app.
• Comms. You own what we say publicly and when: the marketing site, launch communications, press when it comes, and the cadence of what goes out on our own channels. You decide what gets said about the product before launch and you hold the line on what does not (no product name in public ahead of clearance, no donation asks ahead of fiscal sponsor confirmation).
• Messaging. One story about why this exists, told the same way in a piece of content, to a partner organization, to a creator, and to a funder. You write it and you keep it current as the pilots tell us what is true.

What this role is not
Not the field operator. Our current Field Operator recruits ambassadors and works circles on the ground in our pilot hub. You set his targets, give him the playbook, and read his numbers. You do not run his list. Not the product lead. Our current Product lead owns what the product does and how the screens work. You own how people arrive and what they see before they get there, and you are in the room for every screen that touches the invite flow. Disagreements are settled with data from the scorecard, not by title. Not a designer or a video editor for hire. You direct content, brand, and voice, and you can make things yourself. You are not the only person producing every asset — you're accountable for a slate of creators, not a one-person shop. Not (yet) a full-time role. This starts fractional and output-based. If it's working — for you and for us — the intent is to convert it to full-time in-house as the model scales past the pilot hub.

Structure and engagement
Fractional independent contractor agreement, USD.

• Location: remote, with regular monthly travel required for in-person work from any one of our three hubs — Boulder/Denver, Providence/Boston, or New Orleans.
• Output-based: no fixed weekly hours tracked; you're accountable to the scorecard and the key outcomes above, not a timesheet.
• Compensation: $2,300 to $4,250 per month, paid as a monthly retainer. Performance component tied to the same milestones as key outcomes above, agreed in writing before start. No equity, token or phantom-equity compensation. All compensation approved through governance in a single decision before the engagement begins. Hub travel and field expenses covered.
• Path to full-time: if the model is working by the Feb 28, 2027 checkpoint, this converts to a full-time in-house role, compensation renegotiated at that point.

How to apply
Send a note, not a cover letter, answering two things: the last time you built or ran content that got a stranger to do something specific (join, show up, sign up), and how you knew it worked. And a link to one piece of short vertical video you made or directed that you think worked, with the numbers. Applicants who do not follow these instructions will not be considered.