Founding Member / Partner | E-Commerce, Fashion Partnerships & Ecosystem Growth (Female)

Outfit4Rent is headquartered in Germany and operates at the intersection of environmental sustainability, artificial intelligence, and modern consumer behavior. The fashion industry operates on a broken linear model of take-make-dispose, generating massive textile waste and carbon emissions. We are building the technological and operational antidote: a Circular Fashion Operating System.

We operate a high-impact dual-engine ecosystem:

• Enterprise B2B Infrastructure: Partnering with fashion brands, boutiques, designers, and retailers to absorb excess inventory, deadstock, and specialized collections, turning idle, depreciating assets into high-yield, rental-ready revenue generators.

• Seamless D2C Rental Experience: Providing a curated, managed-inventory rental platform serving all genders for formal wear, luxury apparel, everyday professional attire, festivals, and special events.

Our overarching technology roadmap includes managed B2B2C fashion logistics, second-hand circular resale markets, predictive sizing validation engines, and deeply integrated regional cleaning networks designed to maximize garment lifecycles to 55+ rentals per item.

⚠️ CRITICAL PRE-READ WARNING: We are building this organization completely from a blank slate. We are looking for relentless, mission-driven founding members who possess an unyielding "can-do" spirit, thrive in extreme operational ambiguity, and want to own a foundational piece of the company from day one. Candidates with less than 8 years of experience should not apply. This is not a standard paid job; it is a foundational founding member search to build the company from scratch based on sweat equity and performance-vested ESOP.

🏳️‍🌈🎯 Equal Opportunity & Targeted Inclusion Notice

As we expand our core leadership team, we are intentionally focusing our search on female and LGBTQ+ professionals. Diverse perspectives, lived experiences, and exceptional leadership are the non-negotiable drivers of our innovation and long-term success.

🏛️ Foundational Startup Principles

• Radical Accountability: Every founding member owns their domain entirely from macro-strategy down to tactical execution.

• Capital Efficiency: Building multi-million-euro asset-light infrastructure on a bootstrapped, grant-backed, and pre-seed budget via creative resourcefulness and lean technical stacks.

• Data-Driven Decision Making: Gut feelings guide intuition, but data dictates execution via real-time KPIs.

• Ecosystem Leverage: Maximizing regional support structures across North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and the broader DACH region.

🚀 Fashion Partnerships, E-Commerce & Influencer Network

Spearhead market entry, forge high-impact B2B brand relationships, activate social media networks, and orchestrate our managed-inventory ecosystem across Europe.

Core Responsibilities

• Strategic Brand Acquisition & GTM: Execute the multi-year Go-To-Market strategy across the DACH region, leveraging an active, high-level industry network to secure brand inventory pilots, deadstock absorption deals, and revenue-sharing partnerships.
• B2B Onboarding & Commercial Frameworks: Manage end-to-end B2B operations including supplier agreements, inventory intake questionnaires, CRM pipeline tracking, and commercial pricing models (Net-Net-Net models, Konditionenblatt).
• Social Media & Influencer Ecosystems: Build and direct strategic partnerships with prominent fashion creators, styling influencers, and green-tech advocates to drive high-conversion organic D2C growth and brand positioning.
• Omnichannel Merchandising & Assortment Curation: Oversee digital merchandising, seasonal assortment planning, capsule collection onboarding, and return rate mitigation strategies.
• Ecosystem Representation: Represent Outfit4Rent as a founding member and leader at prominent trade fairs, startup hubs, pitch events, and international fashion forums.

Advanced Textile & Retail Skill Requirements

• Managed-Inventory Architecture & Retail Economics: Mastery of open-to-buy (OTB) planning, gross margin return on investment (GMROI), inventory velocity, sell-through KPIs, and asset-light consignment frameworks.
• Textile Lifecycle & Deadstock Monetization: Deep expertise in textile composition analysis, fiber blend classification (e.g., polyester-elastane blends vs. organic cotton/wool structures), post-consumer textile waste diversion, and B2B deadstock valuation algorithms.
• Omnichannel Merchandising & Assortment Curation: Advanced expertise in digital merchandising workflows, capsule collection drop architecture, SKU rationalization, and seasonal category management across luxury and contemporary apparel.
• Return Rate Mitigation & Sizing Frameworks: Implementation of quantitative return-reduction methodologies, reverse-logistics minimization loops, and size-fit validation metrics to protect unit economics.
• Consignment & B2B Contracting Economics: Advanced command over multi-tier revenue-sharing structures, Net-Net-Net pricing models, supplier agreements, and German retail trade frameworks ( Konditionenblatt ).
• Influencer Marketing Architecture & Organic Growth: Strategic execution of performance-driven influencer marketing funnels, affiliate community scaling, and high-conversion social commerce acquisition loops.

Experience Baseline & Background

• Studies & Background: Academic degree such as a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Fashion Design, Fashion Management, Textile Engineering, Business Administration, or related retail disciplines.
• Professional Experience: 8+ years of progressive senior experience in fashion retail management, e-commerce merchandising, brand partnerships, or strategic textile business development. Applications with under 8 years of experience will not be considered.
• Industry Network: Deep, active, influential, and robust network within the German and European fashion retail industry, including apparel brands, luxury/contemporary designers, multi-brand retailers, textile mills, and sustainable fashion innovators across the DACH market.

🧩 What You Bring to the Table

• The "Can-Do" Spirit: Loves building from a blank slate. Owns bottlenecks immediately.
• Strict Location Constraint: On-site presence required in Düsseldorf / NRW for ecosystem building, incubator hub sessions, and physical vendor coordination.
• Language Proficiency: Mandatory fluency in English and German at professional C1 level.

🔥 How We Win: Our Culture

• Speed is the feature: Action creates information. We test fast, fail fast, and multiply pace with AI.
• Focus on the essential: Done is better than perfect.
• See it. Own it. Solve it: A sanctuary for doers. Take absolute accountability.
• Respect others. Trust multiplies: Direct with ideas, never people.

💰 Equity & Compensation Structure

• Early-Stage Reality: As a foundational founding team building a disruptive enterprise from absolute scratch, this is not a paid job at this stage. The initial phase relies on sweat equity, strategic milestone achievements, and positioning the company for upcoming institutional grants and pre-seed funding tracks.
• Founding ESOP: Core founding members participate in a structured, formal ESOP pool with a standard multi-year vesting schedule (including a cliff). This ensures that as Outfit4Rent scales its valuation, brand footprint, and revenue, your long-term personal wealth scales directly in tandem with our collective impact.

📩 How to Apply & Stay Connected

Send your CV and a concise introductory note stating your target technical role, your belief in the circular transition, and examples of past building-from-scratch achievements via our official LinkedIn Company inbox.

If you feel that you are the best fit for this founding role, definitely apply! Having experience in the fashion industry, e-commerce, and related fields will be very beneficial and given more preference.

There is a token of exciting news and developments on the way! Please share this listing with your network and connect with anyone who fits these roles. Be sure to follow our LinkedIn page to stay updated on future announcements, company milestones, and upcoming job openings! 🌍