Founding Marketing Hire

Why Marketing?

Most marketing is lame. It's desperate, it's traditional, it doesn't take risks. The more "AI" or "analytics-based" your marketing function is, the less likely it is to actually be customer-focused. Good enough products don't need marketing, and Yuzu has made it thus far without having a marketing function because we subscribe to that philosophy.

In the defining problem of "healthcare costs", almost everyone agrees that it would be better if fewer of their premium dollars went towards marketing. Yet, we are hiring a marketing person. Why? One of the co-founders probably lost an argument.

Good marketing is about truth, and finding and communicating truth is hard and valuable. The role of marketing is to figure out who needs to know the truth you know and finding a way to connect with them to communicate what you know.

Yuzu is at a stage where we know what the future of health insurance will look like, and we need to figure out who cares so we can tell them our story.

About Yuzu

The future of health insurance is accountability. Right now most people think of health insurance as a black box. It's full of fractured and outdated systems, which makes it difficult to impossible for people who care to power through and realize their ideas. Yuzu serves these innovators who want to design better health insurance plans. We do so by giving them access to data and tools that let them be accountable.

We did this the hard way: by ignoring early advisors and building our own software for processing claims and performing necessary but behind-the-scenes tasks like claims processing, support, and accounting. By owning and building our own infrastructure, Yuzu can keep our promises to the health plans we power by making sure that they don't have to worry about the behind-the-scenes blocking and tackling required to make their ideas work.

So what's the impact of this work? The health insurance administration space is a $500B industry that doesn't offer many meaningful choices to the employers and individuals paying for care. Yuzu serves as a Third-Party Administrator (TPA) that handles the behind-the-scenes administration. We make sure that member benefits are clear, claims are paid on time, and decisions are auditable and accountable.

The Opportunity

We're looking for someone who wants to be our founding marketing hire. Marketing is about figuring out who needs to know about what we do and explaining it to them. Health insurance is a high-trust industry built on two foundations: knowledge and relationships. You will be responsible for building pillars in both of these dimensions:

1. Knowledge. Our customers are smart. They know better than we do how to design health insurance plans and they are frustrated with their limited access to information and tools with their current TPAs. We offer them a "bare-metal" approach: real-time claims data, native cash-payment and direct contracting solutions, and customizability of benefits and eligibility flows. They need to know how we are different from these solutions and how we can access a level of control that is only possible because we control our own software and operations. To establish this expertise, we need to write blog posts, get on podcasts, and build public tools that can deliver value to customers who don't know us yet.

2. Relationships. Health insurance requires a level of trust that is built in person. We need to be able to run events that are valuable to customers and foster relationships that last.

What You'll Do:

• Plan, manage, and execute strategic events including industry summits, broker events, and regional launches

• Develop and execute marketing campaigns for health system plans at the local and regional level

• Build and maintain our brand voice across channels, e.g., thought-leadership, events, and partner co-marketing

• Partner with sales, partnerships, and the health system teams to ensure marketing supports pipeline goals

• Own our content calendar, email programs, and social media presence

The Skillset

• Curiosity about customers, especially those that don't yet know about us

• Caring deeply about our team and mission

• Knowledge of health insurance and/or a true to learn quickly (like we did)

• Curiosity about our product, operations, and engineering

• Strong written communication and creative instincts

• Demonstrated ability to manage events, campaigns, and multiple projects simultaneously

• Comfort working in a lean, startup environment where you'll be a team of one

   

90 Days at Yuzu

The First 30 Days

• Get embedded across the company and learn what makes Yuzu differentiated

• Audit the current marketing motion, content, conference presence, and event strategy

• Assess how Yuzu is currently showing up across:

  • events,

  • blogs / written content,

  • LinkedIn / social presence,

  • and co-branded customer materials

• Build an initial point of view on Yuzu’s voice and audience segmentation

The First 60 Days

• Define the core marketing strategy and recommend where the function should go

• Establish Yuzu’s voice and messaging framework

• Build an initial events plan for:

  • fall health system summit

  • spring broker summit

  • and conference presence

• Recommend a plan for content production, including ownership and cadence for blogs and LinkedIn

• Outline how co-branded marketing with customers should work

90 Days & Beyond

• Launch the first repeatable marketing programs for events, content, and audience outreach

• Establish a content production cadence across blogs, speaker opportunities, and panel appearances

• Own Yuzu’s presence at 2–4 major conferences per year

• Support 1–2 regionally targeted campaigns, including stakeholder events such as happy hours and dinners, and develop the supporting branded materials

Interview Process

1. Initial Recruiter Interview: 30 min

2. Hiring Manager interview: 45 minutes

3. Take home assignment: ~2 hours

4. Onsite: 2 hours

Salary & Equity

In this role, you’ll receive an $140,000 - $180,000 salary, bonus, early equity, and full benefits.

Location

5 days a week in our West Village, New York office

The Perks

🌴Flexible PTO: Unlimited

⚕️Paid health benefits 100%: Medical, vision, and dental

🏦 401k Provider and match

📚Productivity Stipend: $3000/annually

🏠Home Office Stipend: for remote employees

🎉 Team Outings and Offsites: We just went to a mets game!

🥪 Daily in-office Lunch

🧢 Company Swag