Business Development Manager, Local Partnerships

Wanderboat is an AI-powered local discovery platform that helps people explore cities and find great places effortlessly.

By combining conversational AI, interactive maps, and community-driven content, Wanderboat enables users to discover restaurants, attractions, and unique local experiences through simple, natural interactions.

We are building the next generation of AI-powered discovery, reimagining how people explore the world around them.

Our mission is to create immersive and personalized AI experiences that seamlessly integrate into users' real-world activities.

In this hands-on role, you will develop relationships with restaurants, cafés, bars, venues, creators, and community partners, then turn those partnerships into dining experiences, neighborhood campaigns, creator events, check-in activities, and other user-facing local activations.

This is an ideal opportunity for someone with experience in restaurant partnerships, merchant growth, local business development, field marketing, or city operations who wants to help build a new AI-powered local discovery platform from the ground up.

This role combines local partnerships, restaurant partnerships, field marketing, and local activation. You will independently identify, engage, and build relationships with restaurants, cafés, bars, local venues, lifestyle businesses, creators, and community partners, then support co-marketing campaigns, dining experiences, check-in activities, UGC opportunities, and local growth initiatives.

This is a field-facing execution role for someone who enjoys talking to local businesses, spending time in the local market, coordinating offline activities, and helping a consumer product grow through real-world local partnerships.

• Identify and prioritize high-quality restaurants, cafés, bars, venues, attractions, and lifestyle businesses across the SF Bay Area.
• Own the full partnership process—from outbound outreach and in-person meetings to negotiation, onboarding, follow-up, and relationship management.
• Help partners understand how Wanderboat can increase their visibility, customer engagement, and discovery among local consumers.
• Maintain an organized partnership pipeline, including outreach records, follow-up notes, collaboration status, and next steps.

• Develop and execute restaurant features, local guides, check-in campaigns, tasting experiences, special offers, neighborhood crawls, creator meetups, and event collaborations.
• Own activation logistics, including partner communication, scheduling, event coordination, content capture, and post-campaign follow-up.
• Work closely with product, content, growth, and marketing teams to turn partner opportunities into engaging user experiences.
• Evaluate campaign results and identify opportunities to improve participation, engagement, and repeatability.

• Build relationships with local food creators, tastemakers, community organizers, ambassadors, and city explorers.
• Develop collaborations that connect local businesses with creators and Wanderboat users.
• Create simple participation mechanisms that encourage users to discover businesses, visit locations, check in, and share content.
• Stay connected to Bay Area food trends, neighborhood culture, local events, and emerging communities.

• Collect feedback from partners, users, and creators to inform product, content, and growth decisions.
• Track local business activity, creator content, competitive platforms, and consumer behavior.
• Document outreach…