US GTM Lead

About us

Our mission is to reinvent the way people learn, starting with language. We begin by teaching the next billion people English, Spanish, and French.

English is the global language of business, culture, and communication, and over 1.5 billion people around the world are actively trying to learn right now. Others dream of communicating with the half-billion native Spanish speakers across the globe. The problem is that it's nearly impossible to learn to speak a language without constant access to a speaking partner. Grammar and vocab apps don't really help – you need to actually converse with someone.

Speak is on a journey to fix this. We're creating an AI-powered experience that replicates the flow of a conversation, without needing a human on the other end. The goal is to make it radically more accessible to be able to have conversations in a foreign language and eventually help hundreds of millions of people gain fluency who otherwise wouldn't be able to.

We started on this journey over five years ago and we've still got a long ways to go. We're thoughtfully adding new team members only when we think they can truly play a big role in our mission.

Speak launched first in South Korea where we have quickly grown to become the top grossing education app in the country. We have now delivered this winning product to more than 40 countries globally and are continuing to expand to more markets in the coming months. The company is well funded, and as of December 2024, we've reached a $1B valuation with our Series C round, through key partners like Accel, OpenAI, Founders Fund, Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, Lachy Groom, Josh Buckley, and more. We’re a team of more than 90 based throughout San Francisco, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and Ljubljana.

About this role

As go-to-market lead for the US, you will be responsible for growing our consumer business, launching new markets and leading marketing both in terms of strategy and hands-on execution. Speak has quickly become one of the top language learning apps in Asia, surpassing 500k paying subscribers earlier this year. We’ve begun replicating this success at a smaller scale across tier 1 western markets, and we’re looking for a leader that can effectively balance our centralized playbook with domestic market needs to drive growth.

What you’ll be doing

• Own growth performance of the US market, and other tier 1 English speaking markets, across all key metrics
• Identify the biggest growth opportunities and lead strategic initiatives for the US market
• Develop and implement comprehensive marketing strategies to increase both brand awareness as well as more targeted user acquisition
• Help drive content creation, creative development, and localization efforts to ensure relevance
• Collaborate with the central marketing team and other markets to ensure alignment and leverage best practices
• Communicate market-specific product needs, working closely with product/engineering to deliver on them
• Build strong relationships with cross-functional global teams
• Establish policies that promote company culture and vision locally
• Coach, mentor, and develop team members to achieve business objectives and ensure team motivation

What we’re looking for

• Generalist marketer with strong enough technical skills to think about campaigns, channels, and priorities quantitatively
• At least 7-10 years of experience in tech startups in a growth or marketing role, with a focus on growth in the US
• Proficient in analytics and using insights to inform decision-making, especially in the context of marketing and attribution
• Spent substantial time in target market, developing an understanding of local culture and needs, though not a hard requirement to be located there currently
• Collaborative mindset and can partner effectively with other teams across markets and disciplines
• Strong leadership qualities with the ability to build high-performance teams
• Passionate about the problem and mission we're trying to solve

Why work at Speak

1. Join a fantastic, tight-knit team at the right time: we're growing very quickly, we've most recently raised our Series C from some of the top investors in the valley, and we've achieved product-market fit in our initial markets. You'd join at a magical time when a single person could significantly change the course of the company.
2. Do your life's work with people you’ll love working with: we care strongly about our craft and want every person at Speak to feel like they're growing every day. We believe in the idea that working with people you both enjoy and have respect for makes everything better. We hire thoughtfully and only work with people we admire deeply.
3. Global in nature: We're live in over 40 countries and launching in a number of new markets soon. We have dedicated offices in San Francisco, Ljubljana, Seoul, and Tokyo, and you’ll have the opportunity to talk to users in each of these regions on a regular basis as well as travel.
4. Impact people's lives in a major way: Learning a language is one of the single most life-changing skills one can learn, and right now 99% of people never achieve their goal because the process is broken. We’re helping millions of people achieve their goals and improve their lives.

Speak does not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.