Business Development Specialist

Company Description

Quadmates is a student networking platform designed to help university students connect with compatible study partners and form effective study groups. The platform helps students connect based on courses, availability, and study preferences while providing tools that support communication, accountability, and collaboration.

Quadmates is currently focused on expanding within the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University communities while continuing to develop new product features, including AI-enabled tools designed to improve the student experience.

As an early-stage platform, Quadmates offers the opportunity to work directly on growth, partnerships, user acquisition, and product strategy while helping shape how the company develops.

Role Description

Quadmates is seeking a Business Development & Growth Associate based in Waterloo, Ontario.

This role will focus on expanding Quadmates’ presence across university campuses by identifying growth opportunities, developing partnerships, conducting outreach, and supporting initiatives that increase student adoption.

The successful candidate will work directly with the founder and will have meaningful ownership over business development and growth initiatives. The role is well suited to someone who has previous experience in sales, partnerships, marketing, student organizations, entrepreneurship, or business development and wants hands-on experience working within an early-stage technology startup.

Responsibilities may include:

• Identify and develop relationships with student organizations, university groups, clubs, societies, and potential institutional partners.
• Research potential markets, partnerships, and expansion opportunities.
• Generate and qualify prospective partnership and business-development leads.
• Conduct outreach through email, LinkedIn, meetings, and other appropriate channels.
• Develop and deliver presentations and partnership proposals.
• Support campus marketing and user-acquisition campaigns.
• Represent Quadmates at university events, networking opportunities, and relevant student activities.
• Gather feedback from students, partners, and prospective users and communicate insights to the product team.
• Help refine Quadmates' positioning, value proposition, and go-to-market strategy.
• Maintain records of outreach, partnerships, and prospective opportunities.
• Analyze growth and engagement data to identify opportunities for improvement.
• Collaborate with technical and product contributors on initiatives that improve adoption and retention.
• Help develop scalable approaches for expansion beyond Waterloo and Laurier.

Qualifications

• Previous experience in business development, sales, partnerships, marketing, growth, entrepreneurship, campus outreach, or a related area.
• Demonstrated experience communicating with prospective customers, partners, sponsors, organizations, or other external stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong presentation and interpersonal skills.
• Experience identifying prospects, conducting outreach, and developing professional relationships.
• Strong research and analytical skills, including the ability to evaluate markets, competitors, and potential opportunities.
• Ability to work independently and take ownership of projects with limited supervision.
• Comfortable operating in an early-stage environment where responsibilities may evolve quickly.
• Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously.
• Proficiency with spreadsheets, presentations, and standard productivity tools.
• Familiarity with CRM, outreach, analytics, or marketing tools is an asset.
• Familiarity with university campus culture and student organizations is strongly preferred.

Preferred Experience

Candidates with experience in one or more of the following areas will be particularly relevant:

• Startup or entrepreneurial projects
• Sponsorship acquisition
• Student club or society leadership
• Campus marketing
• B2B or B2C sales
• Partnership development
• Lead generation
• Social-media growth
• Event promotion
• Edtech
• SaaS
• Community building
• Market research

Applicants should be prepared to discuss specific examples of projects, organizations, campaigns, partnerships, sales initiatives, or outreach efforts they have previously contributed to.

What You’ll Get

This is not a role where you will simply observe from the sidelines. You will have the opportunity to take ownership of real initiatives and contribute directly to the development of an early-stage product.

Depending on your responsibilities, you may work on projects involving campus expansion, partnerships, user acquisition, launch strategy, marketing campaigns, institutional outreach, and longer-term growth planning.

You will also gain experience working directly with the founder and contributing to decisions that affect the direction of the platform.

Who We’re Looking For

We are looking for someone who is:

• proactive rather than waiting to be assigned every task;
• comfortable reaching out to people and organizations;
• able to communicate professionally;
• interested in technology and startups;
• willing to experiment, measure results, and change approaches when something is not working;
• reliable and capable of following through on commitments; and
• interested in taking genuine ownership over a growing project.

Strong candidates do not necessarily need traditional corporate business-development experience, but they should have some demonstrated track record of executing projects, conducting outreach, leading initiatives, building partnerships, growing communities, or producing measurable results.

Location

Waterloo, Ontario

Preference may be given to candidates currently studying at or familiar with the University of Waterloo or Wilfrid Laurier University, given Quadmates’ initial target market.

Application

Applicants should submit or send:

• Resume or LinkedIn profile
• Program and year of study, if applicable
• A short description of relevant experience
• One or two examples of projects, organizations, campaigns, partnerships, or initiatives they have worked on
• A short explanation of why they are interested in Quadmates