Marketing Manager

Marketing Manager

Zenblen is looking for a smart, scrappy, and highly independent Marketing Manager to help us drive customer trial and repeat purchase across our robotic smoothie kiosk network.

Zenblen has built a robotic smoothie platform with a mission to revolutionize access to nutritious, convenient food in people’s daily routines. We believe that how you fuel yourself as a fundamental impact on how you feel, and we believe today’s consumers shouldn’t have to sacrifice health for convenience. With 10+ live locations across Chicagoland and vision for rapid growth ahead, we are entering a stage where success depends not just on placing kiosks, but on deeply understanding what makes customers become aware of their need, trust the product, make a first purchase, and come back again.

We are looking for someone who is highly thoughtful and execution-oriented — someone who enjoys observing customer behavior, identifying what tactics is and isn’t working, and running with opportunities without needing a lot of structure or direction. The product & customer experience is something that’s been refined over the last 6+ years and your job is to amplify the message to the communities we’re part of in order to maximize our impact.

You will play a central role in helping Zenblen improve location performance by learning what drives customer acquisition and repeat behavior across different environments such as hospitals, universities, residential buildings, and other high-traffic settings. You will work closely with the founding team and cross-functionally with operations, product, and partners to turn insights into action.

This is an opportunity to join an early-stage, venture-backed startup and have an outsized impact on the business. You will also be plugged into the Chicago entrepreneurial ecosystem and receive mentorship from industry experts. The right person for this role is not waiting for a polished playbook — they are excited to help build it.

What you’ll do

• Spend time in the field at Zenblen locations observing customer behavior and identifying opportunities to improve trial, conversion, and repeat purchase 
• Talk directly with customers, location staff, and partners to understand what is driving or inhibiting product usage 
• Help determine what messaging, signage, sampling, promotions, placement, and customer touchpoints are most effective in different market environments 
• Run hands-on experiments to improve kiosk performance and customer engagement, then synthesize learnings into actionable recommendations 
• Track and interpret location-level performance data to identify trends, friction points, and opportunities for improvement 
• Partner with operations and leadership to ensure the customer experience is strong from first impression through repeat usage 
• Develop repeatable go-to-market and activation playbooks for different types of locations 
• Help support successful launches of new kiosks by identifying how to create awareness and drive early customer adoption at each site 
• Maintain strong working relationships with location partners and help ensure Zenblen is responsive to their needs and feedback 
• Bring a constant bias toward action, learning, and iteration as the company continues to refine its growth strategy 

What success looks like in this role

• You drive customer trial and promote repeat behavior within the communities our kiosks are in
• You craft the messaging in which our customer understand Zenblen’s product and view our brand
• You identify practical, actionable ways to improve performance at underperforming or newly launched sites 
• You turn field observations and customer insights into repeatable playbooks the company can use as it scales 
• You operate with a high degree of ownership and can independently move important workstreams forward 
• You bring rigor and thoughtfulness to ambiguous challenges rather than waiting for perfect structure or direction 

Who we’re looking for

• Someone exceptionally smart, resourceful, and able to think on their feet 
• Someone who thrives in startup environments and is comfortable working independently with limited guidance 
• Someone who enjoys solving strategic challenges through hands-on execution, not just high-level planning 
• Someone who can look at data and use it to make data-driven decisions to refine execution playbook
• Someone who is naturally curious (or better yet, obsessed) about customer behavior and motivated to get into the weeds to understand what is actually happening on the ground 
• Someone with strong judgment who can prioritize, adapt quickly, and make progress in ambiguous situations 
• Someone who values ownership and wants to have a direct impact on company performance 
• Someone who communicates clearly, builds trust easily, and can represent Zenblen well with customers and partners 
• Someone energized by fast-paced work and excited to help build a function from the ground up 
• Strong passion for health, wellness, food, hospitality, or consumer experience 

Preferred background

• 3–5 years of experience in a hands-on role in growth, field marketing, customer insights, retail operations, consumer operations, experiential marketing, startup GTM, or a similarly execution-oriented function 
• Experience in an early-stage startup or other fast-moving environment where you had to operate independently and wear multiple hats 
• Demonstrated ability to take ownership of ambiguous problems and turn them into structured action plans 
• Strong instinct for customer experience and willingness to spend time directly in market learning what drives behavior 
• Experience working in consumer, food & beverage, retail, hospitality, vending, or other real-world operating environments is a plus 
• We are less focused on traditional brand-building or pure creative marketing experience, and more focused on candidates who can think strategically, execute independently, and learn quickly in the field 

Salary 

• 70-80K annually 
• Benefits ( after 90 days of employment) Insurance, Investment with matching, other benefits part of the package 

About Zenblen

Zenblen offers freshly blended smoothies through a robotic smoothie kiosk that dispenses and blends ingredients fresh to order right in front of the customer.

We are a fast-paced, high-momentum startup building a new model for food access at the point of demand. Our mission is to make healthy eating more convenient and accessible in people’s everyday lives. We believe that better nutrition should be easier to access — whether someone is at work, on campus, in a hospital, or at home.

As we continue to grow, we are looking for teammates who want to help build something meaningful from the ground up and who are excited by the challenge of solving hard problems in the real world.

• This position requires office work as well as field work.  This is not a remote or fractional position

About our culture

At Zenblen, every team member has a direct hand in shaping the company. We value ownership, initiative, curiosity, and a willingness to roll up your sleeves. We are building in real time, which means the right people here are those who can adapt quickly, communicate clearly, and push important work forward without waiting to be told exactly what to do.

We care deeply about our mission, hold ourselves to a high standard, and want to work with people who are excited to contribute at a high level while growing alongside the company.

And yes — you’ll also get plenty of smoothies.

Featured Articles & Media of Our Journey:

• Video of our innovative product experience
• Member spotlight by mHUB Chicago, mid-west biggest hardtech incubator
• Featured spotlight by University of Chicago’s Polsky Center of Entrepreneurship
• Zenblen’s partnership with the Illinois Institute of Technology Design Program