Customer Development Lead, InStockRx Labs

Customer Development Lead, InStockRx Labs

InStockRx · Remote (US) · Reports to our Chief Evangelist, who leads Labs · Full-time, W-2

About InStockRx

InStockRx is the marketplace that lets pharmacies trade surplus inventory and source medications at a fair price — keeping good drugs from going to waste and giving independent pharmacies room to breathe against PBM margin pressure. More than 1,800 pharmacies are on the network. We are profitable, growing quickly, and closed a Series A earlier this year.

What Labs is

InStockRx Labs is our customer development function, in the Steve Blank sense. We do not write a plan and then execute it. We write down what we believe, then go outside the building and find out whether it is true.

Every project starts as a hypothesis — that a particular kind of pharmacy, patient or partner has a particular problem, that they know they have it, and that they would change what they do to solve it. Those are assumptions, not facts, and no amount of internal discussion converts one into the other. The only thing that does is putting something in front of the people whose problem it is.

So Labs runs the first two steps of customer development. Discovery: does this problem exist, and does anyone care enough to act? Validation: is there a repeatable way to reach those people and get them to say yes? Only when both are answered does a project graduate into mainline development, where the company builds it properly and spends real money acquiring customers.

Most projects do not get there, and are killed — quickly, cheaply, and on purpose. That is the system working. We have graduated one so far: a patient-facing product that proved itself in Labs and is now a funded product line with its own Director of Product.

The role

You are the person who finds out whether anybody wants it.

That is a marketing job, but probably not the one you are used to. You are not here to build a brand, run campaigns or generate demand for a product we have decided to build. You are here to establish, faster and more cheaply than anyone expects, whether there is a customer at all — who they are, what they currently do instead, what they would pay, and whether enough of them exist to matter.

You will do that alongside a Founding Engineer who builds whatever the experiment needs. They make the thing real enough to react to. You find the people to react to it, and you work out what their reaction means.

What you'll own

• The hypotheses. Writing down, before each experiment starts, what we believe about the customer and their problem, and what result would prove us wrong. An experiment with no falsifiable claim produces an opinion, not an answer.
• Getting out of the building. Talking to pharmacists, pharmacy staff, patients and partners directly — in numbers, not anecdotes. This is the core of the job and the part that cannot be delegated or automated.
• Finding the earlyvangelists. The people who already have the problem, know they have it, have cobbled together some workaround, and would pay for something better. They are the only ones whose enthusiasm predicts anything.
• Demand tests, not launches. Landing pages, positioning variants, outreach, pricing probes — built to produce a signal, not to look finished. You will work in the website tools yourself rather than briefing someone.
• Reading the result honestly. Deciding whether a signal is real, and being willing to report that an idea we like does not work. Most of the value you create will be in things we decide not to build.
• The graduation case. When something does work, assembling the evidence — who the customer is, what reaches them, what they will pay — so mainline can build and sell it without starting over.
• Knowing when marketing should stop. Discovery marketing is deliberately small and cheap. Recognising the moment a project has earned real spend, and saying so, is part of the role.

What success looks like in your first year

• Several hypotheses have been tested to a clear answer, each with named customers behind it rather than a survey.
• Most were invalidated, quickly, and the company spent very little finding out.
• At least one has graduated with a documented customer, channel and price — not just enthusiasm.
• We have stopped an idea we were attached to, because of evidence you brought back.
• Someone in mainline can pick up a graduated project and sell it, using what you established.

What makes you a fit

• You have done customer discovery for real. You have sat in front of prospective customers before a product existed, asked questions that could produce a no, and changed a plan because of what you heard. Whether you call it customer development, jobs-to-be-done, or just doing the work, the method matters more than the vocabulary.
• You can build the test yourself. Landing pages and sites in Webflow, Framer, WordPress or similar, plus the copy. Speed depends on you not needing anyone else.
• You are numerate about signal. You can tell a real conversion signal from noise at small sample sizes, and you know when a number is too small to mean anything. Comfort with GA4, Mixpanel or equivalent.
• You can be told no by the market and say so out loud. The job produces more negative findings than positive ones. If being the bearer of those is uncomfortable, this will be a hard seat.
• Zero-to-one, not scale. You have worked where the brief, the audience and the product were all still moving. Early-stage startup, in-house incubator, or a small team with no playbook.
• Strong writing and visual judgement, either executing yourself or directing freelancers tightly.

Healthcare, pharmacy or another regulated industry is a plus, not a requirement. The domain is learnable and we have plenty of people who know it.

What this role is not

• A brand-building role. Brand work on an unvalidated idea is effort spent before we know it is worth spending.
• A demand generation role. Customer creation happens after a project graduates, and mostly not by you.
• A marketing seat on the core InStockRx business. That is a separate team; Labs is upstream of it.
• A role with a playbook. You are establishing what the playbook should be.
• A role where most of your work ships. Most of it will be deleted, and that is the job working correctly.

Compensation

We are profitable and we lead with cash. Your salary is not a bet on runway.

• Base salary: target $90,000–$130,000, depending on experience, skill set and location. We pay more for candidates whose experience warrants it — tell us what you bring.
• Equity: a meaningful grant.
• Performance bonus tied to company performance.

Plus full benefits and a fully remote setup.

How to apply

Apply with your resume and a short note about a time you found out a product idea was wrong — what you believed going in, how you tested it, what the customers actually said, and what happened next. We are more interested in that than in a polished portfolio.