About Iterative
Iterative is an accelerator that invests exclusively in startups in Southeast Asia. Founded in March 2020 by Hsu Ken Ooi and Brian Ma, Iterative has raised $65M across 2 funds, invested in 65+ companies, 120+ founders and the total value of Iterative companies is now worth $1.2 billion.
Our investors include Cendana, K5 Global, Village Global, Goodwater Capital with participation from a large network of Silicon Valley founders and execs including Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox), Achmad Zaky (Bukalapak), Andrew Chen (General partner a16z, Uber), Qasar Younis (Former COO YC, Applied Intuition), David Shim (Foursquare), Kum Hong Siew (Head of Airbnb Asia), Moses Lo (Founder, Xendit), and many more.
Iterative, as an organization, has 4 distinct functions and as a result, a team for each function.
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Recruiting – Find startups for Iterative to invest in
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Investments – Decide whether Iterative should invest in a startup
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Iterative Founders – Help the founders Iterative has invested in
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Support – Make Iterative a first class organization
Iterative is currently a team of 12 and growing quickly across each of these teams.
The Role
At Iterative, we believe the next generation of great startups is being built in Southeast Asia. We’ve backed nearly 300 founders and created a thriving community of startups, investors, and partners. But we’re just getting started.
We’re looking for a Partnerships Lead to build, grow, and maintain meaningful relationships and initiatives that bring exceptional founders to our program. This is a high-impact role where you’ll shape how we work with investors, scouts, founders and the broader startup ecosystem.
Reporting directly to Hsu Ken, you’ll join the Recruiting Team and lead partnership initiatives that expand Iterative’s reach, ensuring we connect with high-potential founders across Southeast Asia.
If you’re a connector, relationship builder, and strategic thinker who excels at bringing people together, creating opportunities, and driving results, this role is for you.
What You’ll Do
Your job is to engage and attract top founders by building partnerships and leading initiatives that generate lasting impact.
Key responsibilities include:
Own and Scale Existing Programs
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Scout Program – Improve on the success of v1. Recruit top angel investors, founders and operators to make investments on our behalf. You will also be responsible for teaching them about how to invest, develop a process so they can make investments and build a feedback loop that keeps them engaged. If you're not familiar with scout programs, see this.
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Founder Referral Engine – Referrals from other founders has been our highest quality source of new founders to invest in since the beginning. Now that we have 300+ Iterative Founders of our own, we'd like you to develop a strategy to consistently generate referrals from them. You will need to design incentives and market it to our community to be successful.
Expand Founder Pipeline
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Leverage Iterative's Network – Iterative has a strong existing network of investors, founders, etc. but we think we're severely underutilizing them. We want you to create and execute on a strategy that utilizes our network to enable others to identify promising founders.
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Direct Founder Outreach – We find that once a founder interacts with someone at Iterative, they are sold on us and what we do. We've capitalized on that through direct outreach through LinkedIn and events but we think we've just scratched the surface. Your job will be to increase Iterative’s visibility among founders. Turn small-scale efforts into a consistent, scalable outreach program.
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University Partnerships – We've received enthusiastic reception from universities but again, lack a cohesive strategy on how to work with them. Your job will be to deepen and establish new relationships with universities so Iterative can identify and support emerging and future founders.
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... or any other initiatives that you think will help Iterative reach founders
Make It Sustainable and Scalable
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Ongoing Community Engagement – Develop systems and processes that keep our partnerships active and ensure long-term value. Avoid "one-time" outreach efforts and foster regular engagement.
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Measure, Iterate & Scale – Continuously track the impact of your strategies, iterate based on data, and focus on what generates the most value.
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Always Be Learning – Just like the advice we give to our founders. You will need to be constantly challenging assumptions, digging into the details and talking to your users.
Who You Are
We're looking for someone that's…
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Strategic and Results-Focused – You’re both a big-picture thinker and a doer. You think strategically and execute effectively, designing and implementing partnerships that deliver tangible outcomes.
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Relationship-Driven – You enjoy connecting with people, spotting opportunities for collaboration, and finding ways to create value for everyone involved.
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Strong Communicator – You craft concise and compelling messages, tailor communication for different audiences, and engage stakeholders with confidence.
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Data-Driven – You use data to measure success, iterate based on insights, and focus on high-impact activities.
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Startup Enthusiast – You are passionate about startups and have either deep knowledge of Southeast Asia’s ecosystem, a strong desire to learn, have been or would be interested in being a founder in the future.
Interviewing at Iterative: What to Expect
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There’s usually only one open role, even if multiple locations are listed. We’re a fully remote team and open to hiring remotely, but LinkedIn requires a city for job postings, so don’t read too much into that! 🙂
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Learn more about our interview process here: FAQ - Interviewing at Iterative.
Culture
These are the Iterative values. They’re not for everyone but if they speak to you, you might be just what we’re looking for.
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Iterate or Die – We take this literally. Ship early, get continuous feedback, and boldly experiment. If not the organization will die.
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Empathy is Our Competitive Advantage – Our success depends on our ability to empathize with other people in the organization and the community.
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Be Realistically Ambitious – The best strategy for making a big impact is to be realistic, have a plan and be ambitious.
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Responsibility is a Privilege, Not a Right – Being part of Iterative means being given responsibility for a part of our business. Be a good steward of that responsibility by being accountable, diligent and open-minded.
