Business Development Manager – AI Partnerships

About the Role

We're looking for a highly driven Business Development Manager to lead market development and partnership efforts around our AI product suite — including virtual try-on, API licensing, and real-time digital human / avatar technologies. This is not a traditional order-taking sales role: it's a market-building role. You will be responsible for discovering and validating brand-new use cases and verticals where our technology creates real value, then translating those opportunities into commercial partnerships from scratch.

You'll work cross-functionally with product, engineering, and leadership to turn open-ended market opportunities into concrete deal structures, and you'll be a key face of the company to external partners — including in the Chinese-speaking market.

What You'll Do

• Explore and open up new market segments and use cases for our virtual try-on, API, and real-time digital human/avatar products — going beyond obvious verticals (e-commerce, fashion) to identify where else the technology can create value (e.g. livestreaming/social commerce, gaming, education, customer service, entertainment, enterprise tools)
• Proactively research adjacent industries, emerging AI application trends, and unmet needs to generate a pipeline of net-new partnership hypotheses — not just respond to inbound demand
• Match market needs to our actual product capabilities — work backward from what a target industry or partner actually needs, and forward from what our technology can realistically deliver today, to shape a solution that sits at the intersection of the two (rather than over-promising or forcing a generic pitch)
• Design and run scrappy market tests / pilot partnerships to validate a new use case before scaling it into a repeatable sales motion
• Identify, prospect, and build a pipeline of potential partners and clients once a promising vertical or scenario is identified
• Drive end-to-end deal cycles for validated use cases — from outreach to negotiation to signed contract
• Develop and manage API partnership deals with platforms and developers who want to integrate our technology
• Build and maintain strong relationships with decision-makers (product, business development, and executive stakeholders) at partner companies
• Represent the company at industry events, conferences, and partner meetings (domestic and international, including Greater China market when relevant)
• Work closely with product and engineering teams to relay market/partner feedback and directly shape the product/API roadmap based on what you learn in the field
• Track market trends and competitor activity in AI-generated content, virtual fitting, and digital human technology to spot the next opportunity early
• Consistently hit and exceed pipeline, new-vertical, and revenue targets

Who You Are

• 3+ years of experience in business development, partnerships, or market development — ideally in AI, SaaS, API products, e-commerce tech, or related fields
• A market builder, not just a deal closer — you're energized by ambiguity, and genuinely enjoy figuring out "who could use this and how" before a playbook exists
• Extremely driven, hungry, and self-motivated — you proactively go find the opportunity rather than waiting for a defined territory or inbound leads
• Strong ability to translate an emerging technology's capabilities into concrete, industry-specific use cases that a potential partner would actually pay for
• Able to reason from both directions — starting from a market/industry's real pain points, and starting from what our product can technically do — and land on a solution that's honest about current capabilities while still solving a real problem
• Strong communicator with excellent negotiation and relationship-building skills
• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, ambiguous startup environment and wearing multiple hats
• Genuine interest in AI, computer vision, generative media, or virtual/digital human technology
• Mandarin Chinese fluency strongly preferred — this is a business-driven preference tied to communicating with partners and stakeholders in the Chinese-speaking market, not a requirement of national origin
• Based in or willing to work from the San Francisco Bay Area
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

Nice to Have

• Existing network in fashion/e-commerce, retail tech, or AIGC (AI-generated content) ecosystems
• Prior experience selling technical/API products to developer or enterprise audiences

Why Join Us

• Ground-floor opportunity to shape go-to-market strategy for next-generation AI products
• High autonomy, high ownership, direct access to leadership
• Work at the intersection of AI, fashion tech, and digital human innovation