Head of Marketing

Who We Are

We’re product first. Viva is a direct-to-consumer fresh pet food company with the goal of helping people & their pets enjoy a healthier, longer life together. We’re pushing the boundaries of what it means to deliver better nutrition and investing heavily in testing, formulation, and R&D to make a science-backed fresh food that truly improves our cats’ & dogs’ health and longevity.

We’re growing fast. We’ve not raised any outside money & in the first couple of years without any paid advertising spend we’ve:

Grown to 8+ figures in annual revenue
Delivered more than 30 million meals to pets across the country
Hit 5,670% growth, landing us No. 48 on the Inc. 5000 fastest growing companies in 2025

Our belief has always been that our ruthless focus on making the best possible product drives the demand. We’re not slowing down anytime soon & have ambitious plans to further transform the lives of many more pets & their families through our nutrition, new products & more.

We’re a small team with a large impact. We believe in working smarter, not harder and spending your time on the work that really moves the needle. We like being a lean yet efficient team so that good ideas move fast from concept to execution.

Who You Are

This role will be responsible for our entire marketing funnel from acquisition to retention and reports to the founder. At the start, you’ll have a small 1-2 person team so you’ll be heavily involved in determining the strategy and providing feedback on the marketing asset being created.

You’ll also be stepping in and executing especially as you get new projects off the ground. Your initial focus will be on performance marketing and building the team. As you scale, you’ll be responsible for expanding our channels and finding the right people to take on additional responsibilities. You’re comfortable owning both strategy and accountability — you don’t just advise, you own outcomes.

You know how to build genuine relationships and community with our customers. You have a strong understanding of how people think and you know how to craft what we say & how we say it so that our customers find value (Are they learning something? Are they being entertained?) in every touchpoint rather than feel like they’re just getting a marketing message. You see yourself as a storyteller and a craftsman.

You can read the story the numbers are telling. How are our customers discovering us? How are our channels interacting with each other? What creatives are working and why? How does this decision affect our LTV, CAC, and payback periods? As we launch new initiatives or make changes, you know what models to build and what metrics to monitor to make sure we are scaling profitably, investing in the right strategies, and making decisions based on data. And when performance problems pop up, you have a detective mindset to deep dive into our analytics, find the root cause, and come up with a plan.

You’re creative, scrappy, and see opportunities that others don’t. Our goal is to scale profitably & sustainably. Paid channels are an important part of our strategy but you also know that all of our competitors are there. You can spot the opportunities others haven’t seen value in and take the early mover advantage and find ways to get value out of channels that others have dismissed.

You have an experimental & iterative mindset. You understand that the more you test, the more you’ll find winners – and this extends beyond paid media. However, you know how to break big ideas down so that we can validate them effectively while controlling costs & risks. You define success criteria upfront and know exactly when to scale or kill a project.

You’re fluent with AI. You can comfortably set up and operate off the shelf AI tools but you also have the chops to build your own AI agents and skills. You know what AI is and isn’t good at, understand where human creativity is needed, and how to build workflows that improve speed & efficiency without sacrificing authenticity.

What Success Looks Like

Month 1-6:

You’ve built dashboards & reports for key metrics and most importantly—are regularly monitoring & interpreting them to diagnose issues, identify opportunities, and prioritize work. You’ve created models that tell us exactly how much we should spend to acquire each type of customer and the incremental impact of the investments we’re making across channels.
You’ve defined the roles we’ll need to fill on the team and timeline for when they should be filled
We’ve built a creative strategy engine that is resulting in more winners, higher creative output, and better stories.
Our email channel is improving acquisition, loyalty, and building brand. Our content is offering real value & engaging our audience, not just pushing selling points or promotions.
Your work across marketing channels is resulting in meaningful growth in new customer acquisition while maintaining or reducing acquisition costs.
You’ve set up resources, systems, and meeting cadences so that all marketing functions are aligned on insights, key messages, and voice. Consistent messaging angles are seen throughout ad creatives, website experiences, affiliate, and email. If one channel discovers an insight, it gets shared & acted on by others.

Month 6-12

You’ve built an all star team and demonstrated that you have the network, know-how, and judgement for finding top talent.
You’ve set up AI tools/automations that are surfacing trends & customer insights more quickly and turning those findings into output & actions
We’ve implemented retention tactics that are meaningfully improving our LTV & reducing churn.
We’ve implemented affiliate initiatives that are increasing referrals/affiliate, their engagement, sense of community, and creating super fans that authentically champion the brand.
We’re regularly A/B testing new landing pages and different site experiences to optimize conversion.
You’re orchestrating “tentpole” moments throughout the year that engage all of our marketing channels and drive outsized growth.
You’ve built a robust Voice of Customer function (customer interviews, testing groups, social media monitoring, ticket feedback) to build a deeper understanding of who our customers are, what they care about, and using these insights to inform long term strategic initiatives across marketing & product.

Key Challenges

There’s a saying that there’s 3 things you don’t talk about at the Thanksgiving dinner table: religion, politics, and what you feed your pets. There’s a lot of social, scientific, and industry context behind how different groups think about the “best” food to feed your pets and you’ll need to deeply immerse yourself in learning those nuances in order to know how you should or shouldn’t message our products.
The pet food industry is competitive and there are many brands with more resources to invest. You’ll need to know your numbers extremely well to maintain profitability, know where to spend your time & money, and most importantly – be very creative in where you find your advantages.

Why You’re Excited to Join

We’ve grown as quickly as we have focusing on making the best product and best nutrition for our customers. We have no debt & no investors, meaning our cashflow is reinvested in the best long term outcome for the brand and our customers, such as R&D, the right team, and much more.
Our product makes a genuine difference in the lives of pets & their owners. We have countless customer messages of how our food has transformed picky eaters & improved energy, GI, skin & coat and more. Your job is to tell those stories, not to overpromise & underdeliver.
We are data-driven & tech-forward. We back business decisions with metrics & analytics rather than gut feeling and are embracing the adoption of AI agents & tools internally to increase efficiency & output. If you have a data question, we have an internal analytics bot MCP that you can just ask the question; it will reach into our data warehouse and pull together the analytics for you.
We’re looking for the Marketing leader to spearhead this part of our organization. You have the authority to execute on all strategies & initiatives. If you have the chops & ownership, we want & trust you to hold the reins as a core part of our Leadership team.

What We’re Looking For:

6+ years experience in marketing strategies across a variety of channels (paid, email, affiliate, organic, content creators, community/live events)
3+ years experience managing team members and agencies
You’re plugged in: the marketing landscape changes quickly and you always have a pulse on the latest through your network and what you’re seeing online
Strong creative collaborator: you can brief & provide feedback to designers & copywriters and know what “good” looks like without being the expert
Experience with subscription CPG products & e-commerce. Pet food or pet products experience a plus!

Perks & Benefits