---
title: 'Sales Development Manager at Athlete to Athlete'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/sales-development-manager-athlete-to-athlete-santa-monica-7cdhsb8d4pgn'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-20'
---

# Sales Development Manager at Athlete to Athlete

- **Company:** Athlete to Athlete
- **Location:** Santa Monica, CA
- **Compensation:** $100k–$120k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-09-17
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-20
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/athletetoathlete/4d4f9639-f341-4bb0-b70e-e79b9f044b81

## Job description

## About Athlete to Athlete

Athlete to Athlete pairs youth athletes with current Division 1 college athletes who play their sport and have already walked the road they're on. Our mentors don't just run drills — they help young athletes build confidence, find their path, and take real ownership of their game.

Our mission is to unlock every athlete's potential by connecting them with those who've lived it. Our vision is a world where every athlete rises and lifts the next.

We're a venture-backed, fast-growing sports technology company based in Santa Monica, and we run the way we coach: human-first, tech-forward, and built on the same values we ask of our athletes — Meaningful Connections, Coachable, Pathfinders, Teamwork, and Resilience.

## About the Role

The Sales Development Manager leads the team that opens every door for us. You'll hire, coach, and run our Sales Development Representatives — known to families as Program Advisors — whose job is to reach inbound leads fast, qualify them in one conversation, and book Program Planning Calls onto our Account Executives' calendars.

We're scaling this team quickly, and you'll be building it: the playbook, the cadences, the daily rhythm, and the culture. You'll spend most of your day on the floor — listening to calls, running huddles, coaching reps in the moment — and you'll own the number of qualified meetings the team delivers every week.

You report to the Head of Sales and partner closely with the Account Executive Manager to keep the handoff between the two teams clean and the feedback loop honest.

This is an on-site position based in Santa Monica, CA.

## Key Responsibilities

- Own the team's weekly and monthly qualified-meeting targets, show rates, and meeting-to-close contribution.

- Recruit, interview, hire, and ramp SDRs on an aggressive growth plan. Build the onboarding that gets a new rep productive in weeks, not months.

- Coach daily. Live call listening, recorded call reviews, role plays, and one-on-ones with clear development plans for every rep.

- Build and iterate the SDR playbook: talk tracks, qualification framework, objection handling, texting and email sequences, and disposition standards.

- Run the daily operating cadence — morning huddles, activity tracking, end-of-day reviews — and hold the team to high standards on volume, speed-to-lead, and CRM hygiene.

- Partner with the AE Manager on lead routing, meeting quality, and no-show reduction. Make sure every booked call arrives with complete notes.

- Work with Marketing and Sales Ops on lead scoring, sequences, and tooling so reps spend their time talking to families, not fighting systems.

- Report clearly to the Head of Sales on pipeline created, team performance, and what's working or not.

- Identify and develop your next Team Lead and future Account Executives from within the team.

## Qualifications

We care about how you lead as much as what you've done. The ideal candidate has carried a phone quota, then built and coached a team that beat one.

Required

- 5+ years in sales, including at least 1 year managing or leading SDRs, BDRs, or an inside sales team.

- A track record of hitting team targets through coaching and process.

- Experience hiring, onboarding, and ramping early-career salespeople at pace.

- Strong command of outbound and inbound prospecting mechanics: cadences, speed-to-lead, qualification, disposition discipline.

- Fluent with CRM systems, dialers, and sales engagement tools; comfortable building reports and reading a dashboard.

- Excellent written and verbal communication.

What Will Make You Successful

- You coach, you don't just manage. Your reps get measurably better every month, and they can tell you exactly what you're working on with them.

- You build. You'd rather create the playbook than inherit one, and you're comfortable when the process doesn't exist yet.

- You're on the floor. You lead from the middle of the room, not from a conference call.

- You're competitive. You keep score for the team and you take a miss personally.

- You're resilient. Early-career reps struggle, quit, and surprise you. You reset and keep the standard high.

- You're a teammate. You want the AEs to win as much as your own team, and you build that into how SDRs work.

- You take ownership. The team's number is your number.

## Nice to Have

- Competitive athletic background, you've been coached hard and you know how to coach.

- Experience in high-velocity consumer sales (education, youth programs, fitness, coaching, insurance, or similar).

- Experience standing up an SDR team from a small group to a large one.

- Passion for youth and college sports.

## Why Join Athlete to Athlete

- Build a sales development team from the ground up at one of the fastest-growing sports technology companies in the country.

- Lead a product you'll believe in: every meeting your team books puts a young athlete one step closer to a mentor who's lived their path.

- Work directly with the Head of Sales and the CEO on how the go-to-market engine gets built.

- Develop the next generation of sellers, many of your SDRs will become the company's AEs and leaders.

- Earn meaningful equity alongside a high-growth startup.

Athlete to Athlete is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  We are committed to providing a workplace free from discrimination and harassment.  We do not discriminate on the basis of legally protected characteristics under applicable federal, state or local law.

Athlete to Athlete is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified candidates and employees with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process, please let the recruiter know.

## About Athlete to Athlete

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Athlete To Athlete is a virtual mentorship platform that connects youth athletes with Division I college athletes for one-on-one guidance, support, and inspiration.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage)
- **Headquarters**: Santa Monica, California, United States (relocated from Los Angeles in early 2025)
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Anthony Waller and Zach Maisus (UCLA students and former athletes)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Youth Sports Mentorship & EdTech
- **Target customers**: B2C — youth athletes (elementary through high school) and their parents
- **Mission**: To build the next generation of confident, driven, and resilient young adults by leveraging the values of athletics and the impact of positive role models.

## Products & Services
- **1-on-1 Virtual Mentorship Program**: Youth athletes are matched with a current NCAA Division I college athlete who plays their sport. Sessions are conducted via weekly online video calls covering confidence building, goal setting, film review, handling setbacks, and mindset development. The program functions as an "older-sibling" style relationship.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly available (Seed stage, raised in November 2023)
- **Total Funding**: Seed round closed in November 2023. Investors include **UpHonest Capital**, **TenOneTen Ventures**, and **Rainfall Ventures**.
- **Key Metric**: Has facilitated over **100,000 mentorship meetings** (as of mid-2025) and worked with **35,000+ athletes**.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: UpHonest Capital, TenOneTen Ventures, Rainfall Ventures
- **Growth Signals**: 
    - **100%+ year-over-year growth** since launch four years ago
    - Headcount grew **64.5% YoY** to ~1,129 employees (notable: a large portion are part-time mentors; LinkedIn reports 1,129 total but full-time salaried staff is a fraction of this)
    - Network of **10,000+ top college athlete mentors** across **300+ universities**
    - Coverage of **30+ sports** and **49+ U.S. states**
    - Expanded to a physical office in Santa Monica, CA
    - Received **500+ five-star reviews** from families across four continents

## Competitive Advantages
- **Unique Peer-to-Peer Structure**: Mentors are current college athletes close in age to the youth athletes, creating an "older-sibling" dynamic that resonates better than traditional coaching or parental advice.
- **Massive, Pre-vetted Mentor Network**: A curated pool of 10,000+ Division I athletes provides unmatched depth and breadth across sports and geographies.
- **Low-Cost, High-Volume Model**: Session-based video delivery enables scale without requiring physical facilities, keeping unit economics favorable.
- **Strong Brand & Trust Signal**: Boasts a 4.9 rating (loved by 10,000+ parents) and an overwhelmingly positive parent community.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling the platform via AI**: Job postings indicate the company is building an "AI-powered online platform" to enhance matching, scheduling, and mentorship quality.
- **Aggressive hiring in Sales, Marketing, and Engineering**: Recent roles include Director of Performance Marketing, Senior Sales Associate, and Mid/Sr. Full-Stack Engineer — signaling a push to grow top-of-funnel acquisition and product depth.
- **Expanding the Mentor Network**: Continuously recruiting from NCAA programs to deepen sport and geographic coverage.
- **Physical Presence**: Opened a first official office space in Santa Monica, CA in April 2025, indicating maturation from a fully remote startup.

## Why Work Here
- **High Growth Environment**: The company has grown 100%+ YoY for multiple years, offering significant career acceleration and impact for early employees.
- **Meaningful Mission**: Work directly on a product that builds confidence and resilience in young athletes — a deeply personal mission for many team members who are former athletes themselves.
- **Hybrid Work Model**: The new Santa Monica office operates on a hybrid schedule (56% of open roles are hybrid, 44% on-site). Fully remote roles are rare.
- **Culture**: Described internally as a "fast-growing sports-tech startup" with a tight-knit, mission-driven culture. The leadership team includes former NCAA athletes and operators from top universities (UCLA, Yale, Northwestern).
- **Compensation**: Competitive for a startup of this stage — Full-Stack Engineer roles are posted at **$175k–$200k/year**; Sales roles range from **$52k–$72k/year** (plus commission).
- **Notable Perks**: Opportunity to shape the engineering platform from scratch (Mid/Sr. Full-Stack Engineer role); strong brand recognition in the youth sports market.

## Sources
1. [athletetoathlete.com/about](https://athletetoathlete.com/about)
2. [athletetoathlete.com](https://athletetoathlete.com/)
3. [linkedin.com/company/athlete-to-athlete](https://www.linkedin.com/company/athlete-to-athlete)
4. [indexed.vc/companies/athlete-to-athlete](https://indexed.vc/companies/athlete-to-athlete)
5. [jobera.com/employer/athletetoathlete/](https://jobera.com/employer/athletetoathlete/)

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