Principal, New Ventures
About Gravity Labs
Gravity Labs is a crypto focused venture studio. We don't write checks and wait. We come up with initial ideas, pressure test those ideas, recruit the founding team, and write the first seed check ourselves. We're owned by defy.vc, which gives us institutional firepower and a network most studios don't have.
Today we have three live portfolio companies, a fourth launching in weeks, and an active pipeline of new hatches. We're small, fast, and unapologetically opinionated about what gets built.
The role
We're hiring a Principal, New Ventures to be a venture creation engine inside Gravity. Right now, almost all new ideas flow through the CEO. That's the bottleneck we're hiring you to break.
You'll own creating hatches (our terminology for potential new companies) end to end: spotting the gap in the market, writing the business case, making the pitch for why we should invest, and recruiting the founding team.
This is not a research role. It is not an investor role. It is a builder role for someone who has the taste of a PM, the speed of a founder, and the conviction to kill their own ideas when the data says so.
What you'll do
- Generate and validate new hatch ideas. Read widely, talk to operators, mine the defy network, and bring a steady flow of crypto native concepts into the pipeline. We need volume but also signal.
- Write the docs that move ideas forward. Business cases, investment memos, founder pitch decks. Clear prose, sharp framing, honest about where the idea could die.
- Pitch defy’s investment committee. Defend your hatches same as an outside Founder looking for funding.
- Build MVPs. For hatches where it makes sense, use AI coding tools to ship a working prototype before the founder is hired. Compressing our timeline is key.
- Recruit founders. Partner with recruiters and your own network to land CEOs and CTOs who'll quit their jobs for the idea.
- Advise post launch. Stay close to the founders you placed. No board seat, no operational ownership. Just be the person they call.
- Kill your darlings. Recommend shutting hatches down when the thesis breaks. We'd rather waste a one pager than a year.
What we're looking for
Required:
- Startup experience. You've been early at a company (founder, founding team member, or first PM type role).
- Crypto experience. You've worked on a crypto product, invested in the space, or built something on chain. You know the difference between a thesis and a meme.
- Product management instincts. You can scope an MVP, identify the riskiest assumption, and write a spec that an engineer can ship from.
- Technical literacy. You can read code, prompt your way through Cursor or Claude Code, and ship a working prototype without waiting for an engineer.
- Sharp written communication. Your docs don't need heavy editing.
- Comfort with ambiguity and a high kill rate. Most hatches will die. That's the job.
Bonus:
- Prior founder experience (any outcome).
- Built or shipped something with AI coding tools recently.
- Existing network of crypto operators and engineers you could recruit from.
- Based in NYC or willing to be there often.
Compensation
- Base: $100K to $130K depending on experience.
- Equity: Participation in the upside of every hatch you originate.
- Bonus: Cash bonus tied to hatch creation milestones (funded, founder hired, first user live).
- Benefits: Standard health, dental, vision, etc.
- Location: NYC preferred (our office is in Dumbo) and we'll lean toward in person candidates, but we're open to SF or remote for someone exceptional.
How to apply
Fill out our application: : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfI025UonMhRxz-5oKHjaE02A-ouRT5LGHq-WGJaWm8fhECNA/viewform?usp=dialog