Director of Operations
Flowerburst LLC · Full-time, remote
About Flowerburst
We are the fastest growing and most disruptive business in publishing since Amazon.
Flowerburst starts movements — ideas that burst into life radiantly. Publishing is broken: more than 80 percent of Americans feel they have a book in them, and only about 1 percent ever publish it. After taking 2-3 years to go to market, nine out of ten traditionally published titles fail to turn a profit. Why? There are three middle men between the author and end customer, and there simply isn't enough margin for any party to invest in marketing.
Success on self-publishing platforms like Amazon KDP is even more elusive – they leave authors marketing blind and without cashflow: Amazon KDP doesn't show authors who their customers are and where they came from, and pay 60+ days after a sale is made. The result is centuries of gatekeeping in which the best ideas rarely reach the people who need them, dying on shelves in the back of bookstores, undiscovered. We are building the company that fixes this: an AI publishing platform fused with social, direct-to-consumer commerce. The AI platform allows anyone, anywhere to compile their idea in book form - helping the author exactly where they need it. Social commerce allows authors to place books in the heart of culture – social media feeds – to get discovered, even by audiences who typically don't read books. Anyone, anywhere can write a book and get it to the masses. The end goal is a literary revolution.
The flywheel is already turning and validation has been immediate. In under 12 months since prototype launch, we've grown to $7.5M ARR (GMV run rate), and we are one of the top book sellers on social commerce platforms like TikTok Shop; we operate our own publishing imprints, and a creator/affiliate program of hundreds of active creators. Over the next quarter, we're releasing our own titles (we publish at the speed of movements, not years), and within the next year, we're opening up our platform so any author – regardless of station in life – can put their idea on paper and bring it to people who are eager to hear it.
We are AI-native by design. Parts of daily operations already run on agent workflows, and our operating model pushes every repeatable process toward supervised automation — the bar here is not "comfortable with AI," it is "builds with AI as a first resort." That is why this role matters: the operating machine you build is what lets a lean team carry a mission this size. Every hour of ops you automate is an hour redirected toward getting the next great idea into the world.
The role
This is not a keep-the-machine-running job. It is a design-and-build-the-machine job, and you will operate as a true partner to the CEO. Flowerburst runs on a written Ops Execution Framework: roughly 60 recurring SOPs across four storefront brands, each with a designated priority, an SLA, and a defined escalation path — covering customer support, returns and refunds, marketplace compliance and appeals, supplier and fulfillment reconciliation, and creator/sample operations. You will own this framework end to end. Your mandate:
- Propose and implement the ops structure for our next phase of growth. Take us from ~$7.5M toward $25M+ ARR without breaking. You bring proposals and systems, not status reports.
- Drive the delegation waterfall. Every SOP moves through three stages: the Director owns and documents it → an analyst runs it independently → a supervised AI workflow runs it. Your success is measured by how fast processes move down this waterfall so human time concentrates on judgment and exceptions.
- Integrate AI deeply into workflows. You will personally build and deploy agentic workflows (Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity Super Computer, browser agents, scripts, automation platforms) and set the standard for the team. Headcount stays lean because automation does the volume.
- Build and manage a lean offshore team. You inherit an ops analyst and dev support; you will hire, train, and performance-manage additional lean offshore hires as the automation roadmap demands — owning SLAs, quality, and escalation paths.
What you'll own day to day
- P0, SLA-bound work: customer-facing platform support chats, returns/refunds, violation and shop-performance-score appeals — the work that directly gates revenue and shop health.
- Order lifecycle and fulfillment: distributor and print-on-demand order submission, 3PL coordination, order-error triage and resubmission, tracking sweeps.
- Supplier and financial hygiene: credit reconciliation with distributors and 3PLs, defective-goods claims, chargeback appeals.
- Creator and sample operations: sample approvals, eligibility configuration, target-collaboration invitations, creator communications.
- Vendor and partner management: publisher wholesale accounts, distributor relationships, 3PL selection.
- Reporting and cadence: KPI dashboards, weekly ops sync with the CEO, error and violation logs.
- Documentation: a written SOP, a screen recording, and (once stable) an AI workflow file for every process — a known gap you will close quickly.
What you'll build as we expand
The framework above covers today's machine. Expansion means half the job is building what doesn't exist yet — and you own the front edge:
- Net-new SOPs: when a new channel, partner, product line, or recurring problem appears, you design the process from zero — write the SOP, set its priority and SLA, run it yourself until it is stable, then drive it down the waterfall to the analyst and to an AI workflow.
- Partner sourcing and selection: as fulfillment scales, you field offers from 3PLs, run structured evaluations (pricing, SLAs, test shipments, references), negotiate terms, and pick the winners — and you do the same for new print and publishing partners as we release our own titles.
- New platform integration: when we enter a new marketplace or social-commerce channel, you stand up operations end to end — account setup, catalog and inventory integration, fulfillment routing, platform compliance — then codify it into SOPs the team and agents can run without you.
Who you are
- 5+ years in operations, including 2+ years leading ops for an e-commerce or marketplace business (TikTok Shop, Amazon, Shopify, or Temu seller-side experience strongly preferred).
- Demonstrably AI-fluent: you use LLMs daily, you have personally built automated workflows (LLM agents, n8n/Make/Zapier, scripts), and you can show them.
- A systems builder: you write tight SOPs, define priorities and SLAs, and instrument everything you run.
- Experienced building and managing distributed or offshore teams with real accountability structures.
- High agency and high candor: you surface problems together with proposed solutions, you escalate with complete information, and you make defensible calls under ambiguity.
- Fluent written and spoken English (C1+).
How we work — read this before applying
We are a startup in compounding growth, and we set expectations explicitly because fit matters more than anything else. The pace is faster and the hours are longer than a corporate job: this is more than 9-to-5, priorities shift, and things are chaotic relative to a big company — especially during launches, seasonal peaks, and incidents. In exchange, long hours and strong output are rewarded through real performance incentives, a direct working relationship with the CEO, genuine ownership of a function, and work on something meaningful that is growing fast. If you want predictable and calm, this is the wrong role. If you want to build, it is a great one. One hard requirement: your workday starts at 9:00 AM US Pacific (San Francisco) time aligned to US business hours.
Compensation
Competitive monthly base benchmarked to your region, plus a quarterly performance incentive plan tied to operational KPIs. Full-time, long-term engagement.
Hiring process
- Application, CV, and a short Loom video: introduce yourself, answer a couple prepared question, and walk through one AI or automation workflow you personally built.
- Initial screen.
- Working session with the CEO: live problem-solving on a real Flowerburst ops scenario.
- Paid trial project (compensated take-home).
- Expectations alignment review: we walk through our operating norms in writing and both sides sign off before an offer.
- Offer.