Copy Of Vp Of Customer Success | $220k Ote ($150k Base + $70k Variable) + Equity [Remote (U.S.)]

About SAM Labs

SAM Labs builds award-winning STEAM solutions that spark creativity and wonder in classrooms across the world. We believe every child deserves hands-on learning experiences that develop critical 21st-century skills: problem-solving, collaboration, and computational thinking. In the USA only, our physical-digital learning platform brings coding, robotics, and design thinking to life in 770+ schools across 176 districts, creating those magical "aha moments" where students discover they can build, create, and solve real problems.

We're not building back-office EdTech. We're in the classroom, where the impact is visceral; teachers send us pictures of students lighting up with excitement because of what we've built together And we're on a mission to scale that impact while building a customer success organization that becomes a benchmark for the industry.

Compensation: $220k OTE ($150k base + $70k variable) + Equity

Location: Remote (U.S.) | Travel: Up to 50% during busy periods, typically 33%

Reports to: CEO

About the Team

Our Customer Success department of 7 people sits at the heart of our $2.6M ARR business and our path to reach a liquidity event by 2029. The department consists of former educators who deeply understand the classroom; professional development specialists and customer success managers who span implementation, renewals, and expansion. They care intensely about student impact and bring authentic education expertise to every client interaction.

The department is positioned for its next evolution: transitioning from a teacher-focused support function into a commercially-oriented retention and expansion engine. This means building the infrastructure, processes, and commercial discipline that will enable the organization to achieve 95%+ Gross Revenue Retention and systematic district-wide expansion. The foundation is strong; deep education expertise and genuine commitment to student outcomes—but the commercial operating system needs to be built.

About the Role

As VP of Customer Success, you'll own the single most important driver of SAM Labs' enterprise value: achieving 95%+ Gross Revenue Retention and 100%+ Net Revenue Retention. This isn't a 'maintain the status quo' role. You're walking into a department that needs strategic direction, a commercial playbook that doesn't exist, and superintendent-level relationships that haven't historically been owned by the Customer Success function.

Your mission over the next 12-18 months:

• Deliver the numbers: Hit 85%+ Gross Revenue Retention and 100%+ NRR within 6-12 months, scaling toward 95%+ GRR by Q4 2027 to position us for premium fundraising multiples
• Build the expansion engine: Create the district-level expansion playbook from scratch. We're in 15% schools per district on average - you'll design the systematic approach to expand to the other 85%. Own the expansion pipeline and drive 30-40% ARR growth from existing customers
• Transform the organizational structure: Within your first 45 days, assess the department's strengths and capability gaps, deliver your vision for the CS function, and implement an organizational structure that separates Customer Success Managers (teacher-facing, implementation) from Account Managers (commercially-oriented, expansion-focused). This structural change doesn't currently exist and will require you to determine role assignments, identify professional development needs, and establish clear performance expectations that align with our commercial objectives.
• Get in market, aggressively: Complete 50 in-person district visits within 6 months - split between top 30 renewal-risk accounts and top 20 expansion opportunities. You'll cluster trips geographically (3-4 districts per trip) and build the superintendent relationships that currently don't exist
• Install revenue operations infrastructure: Implement tiered engagement models, account health scoring, renewal forecasting, expansion pipeline visibility, and quantifiable success metrics that the team has never had. Stop the "every client treated equal" approach and ruthlessly prioritize by revenue potential

Here's what's hard about this role: The current department structure has individuals managing both implementation (teacher relationships) and expansion (decision-maker relationships) without clear role segmentation, which creates competing priorities and makes it difficult to develop specialized commercial capabilities at scale. The K-12 budget cycle creates brutal seasonality: districts finalize budgets in July, but the influence window is NOW (Feb-June), so you need to move immediately. Travel is non-negotiable: 25+ trips per year including conferences that start on Sunday, evening drinks with superintendents, and being away from home when it matters for the business. Superintendent-level relationships currently sit with the sales organization and need to transition to Customer Success ownership as accounts mature. And you'll be working with a CEO who's intellectually rigorous, expects data-backed decision-making, and will challenge your thinking; you need conviction backed by evidence, not just passion.

Who You Are

• You're a builder and change agent, not a caretaker. You've walked into departments before and fundamentally transformed them: structure, culture, operating model. You have concrete before/after stories of organizational transformation. You're willing to make difficult organizational decisions quickly because you understand that your allegiance is to delivering client value and business outcomes, which sometimes requires hard calls about structure, roles, and resource allocation.
• You think and speak in numbers. When you talk about your work, you naturally reference "book of business worth $X" and "improved metric by Y%." You know how to interrogate analyses, distinguish correlation from causation, and push back when the data doesn't support the conclusion. When challenged, you get more specific, not defensive.
• You're a proactive relationship builder who doesn't wait for permission. At conferences, you have a clear vision: "I need to speak to these people. They're my customers." You sit at every table, book meetings aggressively, and stay up late networking because you understand that's where deals happen. You're as comfortable building rapport with a superintendent over dinner as you are troubleshooting with a classroom teacher.
• You're scrappy and opportunistic in the best way. You thrive in startup chaos. You spot opportunities outside your normal scope and go after them entrepreneurially. You view field time as an investment in relationship capital, not a burden. Sunday conferences and last-minute trips energize you because that's where the business gets built.
• You maintain direction when others create chaos. You shield your team from "initiative fatigue" by saying "no" to organizational opportunism that would distract from priorities. You don't need constant validation or celebration to stay motivated. You team forward with clarity by linking actions to clarity.
• You're comfortable at the executive level. Whether it's a superintendent, curriculum director, or CAO, you know how to build and maintain executive relationships. You understand committee-based decision-making and the difference between the person who influences, the person who decides, and the person who signs
• You combine commercial instincts with genuine impact orientation. You care about student outcomes and want to see those pictures of kids learning. But you also know that protecting revenue and expanding accounts is how we scale that impact. You're bilingual: you speak impact-language externally (student outcomes, teacher satisfaction) while managing commercial metrics internally (NRR, GRR, expansion pipeline)

Challenges You Should Know About

• Travel is table stakes. This role requires 25 trips per year, including weekend conferences where superintendents network over evening drinks. If you have rigid work-life boundaries or travel constraints, this isn't the right fit.
• You're building a new organizational structure that doesn't exist today. As you design the CS vs. AM role split, you'll need to assess individual strengths, determine optimal role assignments, identify capability development needs, and make recommendations about organizational design that serve the business. This structural transformation will require thoughtful change management: some individuals will naturally fit the new AM role, others will excel in the CSM role, and you'll need to determine whether the current organizational chart has the right composition or if adjustments are needed.
• The K-12 sales cycle is uniquely challenging. Decision-making happens by committee. Budget windows are narrow. Information asymmetry inside districts means you need to relay messages between parties who should be talking to each other but aren't.
• You're building from scratch. There's no expansion playbook. There's no health scoring model. There's no tiered engagement framework. We have data chaos: Airtable, HubSpot, Google Spreadsheets, Excel, all mixed together. If you need established systems to walk into, this isn't it. You're the person who builds those systems.
• The CEO will challenge you. Expect to defend your thinking with data and logic. Expect skepticism when you propose strategies that contradict past failures. Expect limited celebration when you succeed. If you need a unilateral cheerleader, you won't find one here. But if you thrive on intellectual rigor and respect earned through results, you'll love it.

Qualifications

• Managed a Customer Success, Account Management, or Revenue Operations team of 4+ people with responsibility for retention and expansion metrics
• Owned a book of business worth $2M+ ARR with measurable retention and expansion outcomes you can quantify
• Experience in complex B2B or B2G sales environments with multi-stakeholder decision-making (K-12 EdTech strongly preferred; government, public sector, or healthcare SaaS also relevant)
• Track record of transforming underperforming teams; you have before/after stories with concrete evidence of structural and cultural change
• Demonstrated ability to build executive-level relationships and navigate political, committee-based buying processes
• Comfort with data; can build analyses, interrogate metrics, and push others to think critically about what the numbers actually mean
• Proven ability to travel extensively (25 trips/year) and work flexibly around customer schedules including weekends when necessary
• Self-sufficient operator who maintains strategic direction without constant reinforcement from leadership
• History of making difficult people decisions (performance exits, restructuring) for the right business reasons
• Bonus points for:
• • Experience with district-wide expansion strategies in K-12 (currently in 5 schools, expanding to 95+)
  • Understanding of K-12 budget cycles, procurement processes, and nomenclature (superintendent, CAO, director of elementary, etc.)
  • Background in having, as clients, impact-driven or mission-based organizations where ROI is measured in outcomes, not revenue

What We Offer

Compensation: $150K base + $70K variable (structured as slider, not binary) = $220K+ OTE, with flexibility to $250K for exceptional talent

Equity: Meaningful stake in a company with clear liquidity trajectory by 2029

Impact: You'll receive pictures from teachers showing students having "aha moments" because of the work your team did — not many CS roles can say that

Greenfield build: You're not inheriting bureaucracy. You're defining the future CS function from the ground up at a company positioned for exit

Autonomy: You'll have the space to build, the budget to execute, and the CEO who will challenge you intellectually but give you room to lead

Our Culture

We're scrappy, teacher-centric, and entrepreneurial. We buy TVs at Best Buy for conferences and return them when we're done. We white-label our solution for strategic accounts. We pursue oil and gas curriculum grants when we spot the opportunity. We're not polished corporate; we're hustle and heart in equal measure.

We don't wait for permission. At conferences, we sit at every table and book meetings aggressively. We stay up late networking with superintendents because that's where relationships are built. We're opportunistic — we spot chances outside our normal scope and go after them.

We value thoughtfulness about pedagogy and genuine care for student outcomes. But we're also building a business. We make trade-offs. We prioritize ruthlessly. We say no to distractions. And we hold ourselves accountable to commercial metrics because that's how we scale impact.

If you need constant celebration, polished processes, and clear role boundaries, we're not the right fit. But if you want to build something meaningful from scratch, work with smart people who will challenge your thinking, and create customer success infrastructure that becomes a benchmark for EdTech, let's talk.

Who This Role Is NOT For

Don't apply if:

• You need work-life balance with predictable hours and no weekend travel
• You're still developing sales instincts or uncomfortable with commercial conversations
• You prefer maintaining existing systems over building from scratch
• You become defensive when your thinking is challenged with data
• You need constant validation or celebration to stay motivated
• You want clear boundaries between CS and AM responsibilities (we're building that structure — it doesn't exist yet)

This role demands: Change agency. Commercial courage. Travel flexibility. Data-backed conviction. Executive presence. Thick skin. And genuine belief that protecting revenue is how we scale impact for kids.

If that's you; if you're the person who's been waiting to build a CS organization the right way, in an industry where the work genuinely matters, we want to meet you.

SAM Labs is an equal opportunity employer. We're building a diverse team because diverse perspectives make us better at serving diverse classrooms across the world.