First Round Capital | LinkedIn (original) (raw)

Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals

San Francisco, CA 139,096 followers

Backing remarkable entrepreneurs from the first moment — not just the first round.

Discover all 362 employees

About us

Investing at the earliest possible stage, First Round offers a growing number of services and products to help founders build companies from scratch. We don't split angel, seed and pre-seed funding into separate categories — we're interested in providing the same support across the board. From Uber and Roblox to Notion and Square, this is how we've helped 300+ companies start up.

Industry

Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals

Company size

11-50 employees

Headquarters

San Francisco, CA

Type

Partnership

Founded

2004

Specialties

Technology, Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, and Service

Locations

Employees at First Round Capital

Updates

Most people describe finding PMF as an art, not a science. We're here to change that. Introducing PMF Method. After 20 years and 500+ investments in pre-product-market fit companies, we've drawn on our data and worked with some of the world's most iconic enterprise founders, distilling what they did in their first 6 months into a free 14-week intensive experience that helps sales-led B2B founders build epic companies. In tactical sessions, we help early founders discover what customers really want, build the right v1 product, and close your first sales — all while keeping 100% of your equity. You'll work alongside a tight group of other builders at your same stage, and get to learn from the hard-earned insights from founders of $1B+ B2B companies, like Vanta's Christina Cacioppo, Looker's lloyd tabb, Plaid's Zachary Perret, Ironclad's Jason Boehmig, Lattice's Jack Altman, and Verkada's Filip Kaliszan. The Summer 2024 session of PMF Method runs from 5/29 to 8/28. Any early founder working on a new B2B SaaS company is welcome to apply — just get your application in by 5/7 (or tag a founder friend below!) More details, FAQs, and application link in the comments below 👇
First Round Capital reposted this

Partner at First Round Capital
2d
We recently brought together an epic group of current and former Stripes at the First Round Capital office. Career success comes down to working with the best people and finding your tribe. I couldn't be more grateful to have found mine during my time at Stripe. Adam Eagle, Adam Stevenson, Ashley Chandler, Brian Sze, Cristina Cordova, Dani DeLeon, David Graunke, David Singleton, Emily Glassberg Sands, Eric Lasker, Ethan Yeh, Gloria Lin, Harsha Dante, Horacio Diaz Adda, Jackie Xu, James Dyett, Jeanne DeWitt Grosser, Jeff Weinstein, John Haddock, Karan Sharma, Kate Jensen, Malthe Sigurdsson, Matthew Yalowitz, Michael Manapat, Nelda Gabbay-Robb, Pranav Kashyap, Rama Veeraragoo, Ray Morgan, Ryan Wang, Sarah Heck, Sasha de Marigny, Shawn Razek, Tanya Khakbaz, Uma Chingunde, Vince Cogan, Will Larson.
We’re hiring! We're looking for a sharp, proactive Technical Sourcer to join our Founder Success team. In this role, you’ll be deeply involved in helping founders build exceptional teams from day one. Working closely with early-stage founders (<50 employees), you’ll source and connect them with top-notch candidates across technical and non-technical roles — helping to shape some of the most exciting startups in our portfolio. You should apply if you: -Have 3+ years of sourcing experience and thrive in fast-paced environments -Know how to build a pipeline of standout talent while staying agile and organized -Are passionate about building strong relationships and have an instinct for finding talent in unlikely places Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eS_2-WqM
Technical Sourcer jobs.ashbyhq.com
Product-market fit won't get you through the Pentagon's door. In defense tech, founders need to have “mission-solution fit.”Steve Blank, a founder of the Lean Startup movement and pioneer of Stanford University's “Hacking for Defense” course, challenges founders to rethink the Lean process when it comes to selling to government agencies, like the DoD. While most focus solely on end users and acquisition, Blank argues the real key is getting solutions into the field at speed and scale. More of his critical insights for founders on the In Depth podcast: https://lnkd.in/ecnf2mZP
Selling to government agencies (like the Dept. of Defense)? Throw out everything you know about commercial sales, says Steve Blank. On the latest episode of the In Depth podcast (guest hosted by Meka Asonye), Steve unpacks his can't-miss playbook for founders building for government buyers. You might recognize Steve as one of the founders of the Lean Startup movement. But what you may not know is that he also co-founded Stanford University's "Hacking for Defense" course and has spent over a decade teaching young, ambitious builders exactly how to crack into the DoD and other government agencies. Give it a listen (link in the comments) 🎧
First Round Capital reposted this

Partner at First Round Capital
3d
“When you’re selling into government, everything you know about commercial sales you need to throw out.” 😬 I borrowed the podcast mic for a very special episode of In Depth with the legendary Steve Blank, and he dropped some can’t-miss gems for any founders building for a government buyer. As an adjunct professor at Stanford University, he launched the “Hacking for Defense” course nearly 10 years ago, which teaches students how to use startup principles (like the Lean Startup movement he co-founded) to solve real national security problems. I have immense respect for founders who choose to build startups that solve complicated problems in government — because the road is not an easy one. - How do you validate your idea? Who should you talk to? - How do you convince buyers in the DoD to take a chance on your unproven startup? - How do you cross the chasm between one-off innovation contracts (what Steve calls "door prizes") and becoming a program of record? That’s what Steve and I dive into on today’s episode. It’s a modern playbook for ambitious founders looking to sell into the DoD, and I loved getting to jam with Steve on these topics that I’ve seen builders wrestle with. I’ve dropped a link to the episode in the comments - give it a listen 🎧
Founders: Get comfortable delegating in your "spike" area.Jack Altman breaks down the blessing — and the curse — of staying close to the details in the function you’re most partial to as your company grows. “One of the things that's unique about founder CEOs — relative to professional CEOs — is you have this extra chip of moral authority that lets you shake things up and keep the startup feeling like a startup, even when you're at scale,” he explains. "And one of the ways you exercise that is by staying deep in one area." But too often, founders use this as an excuse to avoid hiring in that area. “That’s where people go wrong. They’ll think, ‘I’m a product founder, so I’m not going to hire a head of product.’” Listen here for more leadership lessons from Jack on the In Depth podcast: https://lnkd.in/esQEZDBZ
The three biggest reasons early-stage startups fail? Founders fall into these traps: 1️⃣ Overthinking 2️⃣ Building without validating 3️⃣ Delegating too soon “These are all great ways to execute, but very slow ways to learn. And what a startup needs to do first and foremost is be humble and open and curious — to get into what I call discovery mode.”Matt Lerner, co-founder at SYSTM and former growth lead at PayPal, breaks down why traditional growth strategies fall short in startups—and why founder-led growth is key to hockey-stick growth. Catch more of Matt’s insights in the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eGftCCAv
First Round Capital reposted this

CEO at Pocus🔮 | AI powered account research & prospecting | try 14-day free trial
5d
Big news: Pocus AI Strategy is generally available and we’re launching a 14-day free trial so everyone can experience the magic! 🔮 ‎Quick background on why we built AI Strategy... Sales changed. Spray & pray used to work, but now budgets are tighter & markets are more competitive. Cold outbound or surface-level signals like “we saw your recent funding round” is not enough. So how are top reps winning in this market? They’re doing deep account research to build value at every stage of the sales process. They’re crafting a POV on how their products can solve real problems, leading to more compelling prospecting and successful meetings. But, only 10% of reps do this. The other 90% don’t have the tools to do this well or at scale... ➡️ ‎Enter: Pocus AI Strategy AI Strategy scrapes all external and internal data then builds custom AI models to help reps be more efficient and strategic in prospecting and call prep, at scale. In seconds (not hours), you get: 1/ actionable insights on a company’s top priorities and initiatives 2/ information on how your products can help 3/ direction on who to reach out to at the account 4/ help writing your outreach 5/ ... and you can even chat with Pocus AI to get more info! 💜 ‎ We’ve seen incredible results with beta customers in booking more meetings and seeing higher conversion across the funnel. Adoption metrics are best-in-class (on par with Netflix and Amazon) and feedback has been phenomenal (as you can see in the quotes)! Excited to get your thoughts. You can start your 14-day free trial here! https://lnkd.in/eeQhJURW
“The problem when you design for everyone, is you design for no one.” It’s hard to imagine LinkedIn without photos, but one of the first features Adam Nash, former VP of Product Management, helped roll out was just that. Back then, it wasn’t even obvious that people would want to upload their resumes, let alone TikTok-style videos of B2B tips on a professional networking platform. Nash joins the In Depth pod to share how early bets on reputation and professional identity helped shape LinkedIn’s growth and unique place on the social web. He maps this back to building a great product strategy in the full episode: https://lnkd.in/evc7uW3A

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First Round Capital | LinkedIn (original) (raw)

Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals

San Francisco, CA 139,096 followers

Backing remarkable entrepreneurs from the first moment — not just the first round.

About us

Locations

Employees at First Round Capital

Updates

Join now to see what you are missing

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