Website:
5a.ventures
Job details:
Founder & CEO - Delphic
Delhi, full-time, in-studio | Majority founder equity | Studio pre-seed funded
The venture
AI assistants have become the broker of expert knowledge. When buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity the questions that used to lead them to research firms, ratings houses and specialist advisories, someone gets cited - and it is usually not the firm with the deepest expertise. These firms are losing their buyer discovery question by question, invisibly, and the standard "AI visibility" playbook (publish more, expose more) is advice a knowledge business cannot take: their knowledge is the product.
Delphic is the managed service that fixes this. We map the buyer questions a firm should own, measure who wins them today, and engineer the firm into the cited answer - on the minimum disclosure, never giving away what their clients pay for. A clinical loop: measure, diagnose, treat, hold.
The timing is the point. AI-mediated discovery is barely two years old, and the category forming around it is already minting billion dollar companies - its tooling leader reached a $1B valuation within 18 months of founding. All of that capital chases exposure-maximising products for marketing teams. The one segment where exposure is self-defeating - expert knowledge - is structurally unoccupied. It will not stay that way.
This is not a concept in a slide deck. The method is documented end to end, the measurement instrument runs in production, client engagements are in motion, and the venture is studio-funded. What it needs now is its founder: the person who takes majority ownership, sells it at partner level, scales it vertical by vertical, and owns where it goes.
The role
- Own the company. You are the founder-CEO with majority equity, not a hired operator.
- Sell at partner level. Our buyers are senior people at expert-knowledge firms. The sales motion is evidence-led: we open with a measured diagnostic of the prospect's own citation gaps, not a pitch. You run that motion and build the client base.
- Run delivery clinically. The engagement loop is documented and instrumented; the studio's agentic tooling stack lets a small team operate well above its weight.
- Bank the moat. Every engagement's measurement and outcome data compounds into an owned dataset that makes the next engagement cheaper and the offering harder to copy. Protecting that discipline is a core founder duty.
- Author the future. The wedge is the entry; the destination is managing a client's authority everywhere an AI forms an answer - and the proprietary market dataset that accrues from doing it, the asset class behind several of the decade's largest research-data exits. How and when that endgame gets exercised is deliberately open, and it is yours to shape.
Who we are looking for
Two profiles fit. You are either:
- A tier-1 strategy consultant itching to found. McKinsey, Bain, BCG or comparable; you have run client rooms and carried judgment to senior audiences; you may be younger if your trajectory is exceptional.
OR
- A senior client-facing operator inside the expert-knowledge industry. Research, ratings, market intelligence, expert networks or specialist advisory; you have owned senior client relationships and can show clear evidence of general intelligence and a product mindset.
In both cases we need to see:
- A built thing. A product, a practice, a research franchise, a company - something you conceived and shipped, however small.
- Senior-room selling raw materials. You have sold or presented expert judgment to CXO or partner-level buyers and can hold that room.
- Speed. Evidence that you move from idea to shipped fast. Consulting polish without velocity is not enough.
- Calibrated honesty. Our brand is an evidence discipline; we look for people who mark uncertainty unprompted and would rather under-claim than over-claim.
- Full commitment. Full-time, Delhi-based inside the studio (we make exceptions only for exceptional candidates).
You do not need: AI or SEO expertise (the method is documented and taught), an engineering background (technical talent is hired), or prior founding experience.
What you get
- Majority founder equity in a qualified venture, with the studio as your minority partner.
- Studio pre-seed investment to fund the business from day one.
- A salary bridge while in-studio, pre-external-raise, so the jump to founding is de-risked.
- A running start: a documented end-to-end method, a working measurement platform, live client engagements, and a locked market position no competitor currently occupies.
- The studio operating environment: agentic tooling that lets you run lean, plus hands-on support from the founder of the concept as your advisor.
Process
1. Apply with your CV plus a short note (max one page) on the best thing you have built and the hardest thing you have sold.
2. Qualified applicants receive the full venture pack - the thesis, the market sized, exactly where the business stands today, and the deal.
3. Deep-dive conversations, a working session on the business itself, and mutual diligence.
Click on Apply to know more.