This is a Founding Enterprise Account Executive seat at an AI-first loss-prevention platform that turns a retailer’s existing cameras into real-time theft, fraud and safety detection. The seat pays $100K–$150K base against a $200K–$300K OTE, roughly 50/50, remote anywhere in the United States, reporting to the founder and CEO. Pricing runs about $6,000 per location per year on a land-and-expand motion, so a 30-location retailer is a ~$180,000 deal that grows with every location added. The buyer universe is small — roughly 200–300 loss-prevention decision makers at enterprise US retailers — which rewards a seller with real retail-tech or loss-prevention domain credibility and disqualifies a generalist fast.
What is this Enterprise Account Executive role, exactly?
It’s the first dedicated enterprise seller at a company whose product rides infrastructure every retailer already owns: their existing camera network. The platform layers AI detection — shoplifting, unscanned items, fraud, watchlists, safety — on top of cameras that are already installed, or provides an integrated platform for new deployments.
Because pricing is per location per year, the motion is land-and-expand rather than one-and-done: pilot a handful of locations, prove the detections, expand across the chain. Deal size is a function of how many doors the retailer has, not how hard you push on price.
Every AI company in your feed claims “AI-first.” Here it’s the actual wedge, and the clearest evidence is that the incumbents can’t answer it.
Why is this different from a normal retail-tech sales job?
Three things, all structural — the buyer universe, the wedge, and what the founder actually wants from the seat.
A knowable buyer universe. Enterprise retail loss prevention is a niche. Maybe 200–300 decision makers in the United States, and they all know each other. One good customer reference travels. For a seller who knows this world, that’s a mapped territory before day one — no 40,000-account ZoomInfo graveyard.
A greenfield wedge, not a rip-and-replace. Retailers under 30 locations mostly have nothing like this. Enterprises have legacy platforms, and the product meets both: it layers onto their existing VMS or replaces it outright. You’re not carrying a forklift migration into every meeting.
A founder who sells and knows when to stop. The CEO has been the sales engine to date and has been explicit about the gap: he wants a dedicated closer from the industry — someone who knows what FPS means because the customers will test you on it. Your job is to convert an inbound-curious niche into a repeatable enterprise motion. That handoff is the whole job, and a founder can’t hand you a playbook he never wrote down.
How does this compare to a typical Founding Account Executive seat?
You get a harder domain bar and an easier territory, which is close to the inverse of the usual Founding AE trade. Most Founding AE seats ask you to find the buyer; this one asks you to already know them. For the wider checklist, what good Founding AE roles look like is the frame I use.
| Typical Founding AE seat | This role | |
|---|---|---|
| Proof it works | Founder-led deals, often under $2M ARR | Founder-led revenue, real but concentrated — largest customer is a 26-location chain |
| Your risk | Product-market fit may not exist | Pull is real; the enterprise motion is untested at scale |
| Base / OTE | $100K–$175K / $200K–$350K | $100K–$150K / $200K–$300K |
| Buyer universe | Thousands of accounts to map from scratch | 200–300 decision makers who all know each other |
| Competition | Often a category nobody budgets for yet | Legacy camera-and-VMS vendors — the budget already exists |
| Domain knowledge | Usually teachable in the first two quarters | Non-negotiable — buyers expect to learn from you |
If you’re benchmarking the number against other offers, what a Founding Account Executive actually earns has the market ranges.
A weekly newsletter for founding AEs selling before the playbook exists.
Mostly the craft of the job; sometimes the career around it. Five minutes a week.
Where is the upside in this role?
You define the enterprise motion, and land-and-expand pricing means one logo compounds on your ledger rather than resetting every quarter. First dedicated seller, reporting to the CEO, in a category where the buyer universe is small enough to know every name and the wedge is real.
A 30-location pilot that becomes a 150-location rollout is the whole job — one account moving from ~$180,000 to roughly $900,000 without a new logo in sight. In a niche this small, the expansion path and the reference that wins the next chain are the same motion.
Who is this role actually for?
A hunter with 5–15 years of B2B closing and genuine retail-tech or loss-prevention domain credibility — the kind that survives a technical buyer. Someone out of video security, VMS or retail analytics — selling camera systems or store analytics into retail today — who wants to sell the AI-first product their legacy employer can’t build. You can teach the industry knowledge in this niche only with difficulty — customers expect to learn from you.
Who it isn’t for: a generalist enterprise seller without retail or physical-security domain who planned to “pick it up.” The buyers will disqualify you in the first ten minutes, and the company will too.
What would I push on before signing?
The first-year definition of success, and how much of the founder’s pipeline comes with the seat. I’ve been working directly with the founder to define this role, so I have a close view of what’s real: an AI-first product in a niche where the legacy players can’t respond, buyers who are actively asking for it, and a CEO who knows his own job is to hand you the engine, not run it.
The caveat is the same as any founding seat at a seed-stage company: the scaffolding is being poured while you stand on it. Early revenue is real but concentrated — the largest customer today is a 26-location chain — and the enterprise motion is untested at scale. That’s the open field and the open risk in one. The right candidate reads that as the whole point.
The questions worth asking before you sign covers the rest of what I’d bring to a first call.
The same company is hiring a Mid-Market Account Executive covering retailers with 5–30 locations — $140K–$200K OTE, based in New York. Same product, same wedge, smaller deals and a faster cycle.
If that’s closer to your size, say so when we talk and I’ll walk you through it instead.
