Founding General Manager / DTC Pet Wellness

About Pepstep

Pepstep is bringing the peptide revolution from human longevity culture to dogs — advanced peptide nutrition in a soft chew dogs beg for, built on our proprietary Pepcore™ complex. The brand is fully designed, the business plan is written, and the founder is funded and committed. Our founder is a proven consumer entrepreneur who built one of the country’s most recognized luxury resale businesses on an Instagram-native sales model, and she’s applying that same playbook — premium product, clinical credibility, audience-first launch — to the fastest-moving white space in pet wellness. What’s missing is the operator who will build it.

The Role

You are employee #1 and the operating engine of the launch. This role begins fractional (roughly 20–25 hours/week) and converts to full-time at launch. Over the next 12 months you will take Pepstep from finished brand concept to a revenue-generating subscription business:

• Product & Supply Chain: select and manage our NASC-member co-manufacturer; drive formulation, palatability, and stability testing; manage packaging from dieline to printed pouch; stand up 3PL fulfillment.

• Regulatory & Credibility: run our NASC membership, state feed registrations, and claims review; help recruit and manage our scientific advisory board; build our batch-testing and published-COA program.

• Go-to-Market: execute the audience-first launch — waitlist growth (“Join the Pack”), a 75–100 account influencer seeding program, launch-week orchestration, then paid media against agreed CAC targets. The founder is the face; you run the machine.

• Commerce & Retention: own the Shopify + subscription stack (Skio/Recharge, Klaviyo), launch offers, post-purchase data, and the retention metrics that pick our second SKU.

Who You Are

• 4–8 years in DTC consumer goods, with meaningful time in pet, supplements, or functional food/beverage

• You have personally launched a physical product — you know what a COA, a dieline, an MOQ, and a first production run feel like

• Comfortable as a team of one: strategic enough to own a P&L, scrappy enough to pack the first 50 seeding boxes yourself

• Fluent in the modern DTC stack and social-first brand building

• Familiar with pet supplement regulatory reality (NASC, AAFCO, structure/function claims) — or a fast study

• An owner’s mentality: you want equity, accountability, and a brand you can point to as yours

Bonus points: existing soft-chew co-manufacturer relationships; time at a brand we admire (Zesty Paws, Native Pet, Ollie, The Farmer’s Dog, Front of the Pack, Ritual, AG1); a dog with opinions.

Compensation

Fractional phase at a competitive monthly rate, converting at launch to $110,000–$160,000 base + performance bonus + meaningful founding-team equity with standard vesting. Remote (US), headquartered in Miami with periodic in-person weeks.

How to Apply

Send a short note (no essays): (1) the product launch you’re proudest of and your specific role in it, (2) one thing you’d do differently than most pet supplement brands, and (3) your resume or LinkedIn. Applications showing real familiarity with pet or supplements go to the top of the pile.