First Round is a venture capital firm that works with founders exclusively at the earliest stages of company building, often when all they have is an “imagine if.” We fill in where we can until the team is filled out, tackling crucial early hiring and equipping those who are great at building product with the skills to sell it, too. By getting the foundational firsts right, we increase the odds of finding extreme product-market fit. Our founders’ “imagine ifs” have turned into companies like Notion, Roblox, Uber, and Square.
We’re searching for an Investor to work directly alongside partner Josh Kopelman to connect with world-class builders today, help us find the next generation of iconic founders, and bring them into the First Round community. This role is based in San Francisco or New York with Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday required in-office and regular travel between the two.
Expectations on the role:
We believe great venture investing comes down to four simple (but hard) things: finding standout opportunities, knowing which ones have the highest potential, convincing founders to choose you as their partner, and supporting them in unreasonable ways.
This role begins with finding extraordinary builders at the earliest possible point. We are looking for someone with both the skill and the obsession to do that well, with the genuine hope that they can grow into all four over a number of years. If step one, which requires immense toil, is not something that you’re excited about pouring yourself into, you will not be successful in this role in either the short-term or the long-term.
Your core role as an Investor will include:
Build authentic relationships with founders, engineers, researchers, product folks, and GTM leaders, embedding yourself in technical and founder communities.
Attend, host and organize events that bring together high-quality builders, from intimate gatherings to larger community meetups.
Act as the connective tissue between builders and First Round — making sure we’re the first call when someone is ready to start a company.
Find creative ways to get great founders to reach out to you, not just the other way around — through writing, social media, online communities, or channels we haven’t thought of yet.
Drive diligence end-to-end on investment opportunities you surface, and stay involved in supporting companies after we invest.
You could be a great Investor at First Round if:
You have commercial and technical range. You’re as curious about why a business works as you are about how a product is built.
You excel at building relationships. Others find you approachable, authentic, and easy to connect with.
You’re reliable and hyper-organized. No matter how full your calendar or inbox gets, you don’t drop balls or leave people hanging.
You’re curious by nature. You dive deep into how things work and constantly explore new ideas, products, and markets.
You do whatever it takes to get the job done. When the work requires speed, late nights, or weekend effort, you step up without hesitation.
Nice-to-haves:
Prior venture capital experience
Startup operating experience, ideally at an early-stage or high-growth company
Active involvement in startup communities, such as founder networks, operator groups, accelerators, meetups, or online ecosystems
We know this isn’t your traditional investor role. We’re open to people with diverse skills, stories, and journeys — what matters most is that you understand how startups actually work and are energized by the craft of building relationships.
Our Values
At First Round, we value resourcefulness, team-play, excellence and hustle. To give you a sense of what our team is all about, check out our values that guide our work:
Try harder for founders. They’re our customers — LPs are our shareholders. We go to the ends of the earth for our founders. You might think our role as venture capitalists is to simply maximize returns. But at First Round, we believe when we put founders first, everything will follow — epic returns included. We fill in the gaps on a founder's team before they even have one and get to work on the unglamorous tasks that actually move companies forward. We'll know we've done our job when they're left feeling startled that an investor would go to these lengths for them.
Take the wheel. Welcome to First Round. Everything is now your responsibility. Cartographers, not navigators, are the ones who tend to do well here. There are no career ladders to climb or boxes to check at First Round. If you find ways to do more for the business and our customers, your role will naturally expand alongside it. First Round is a haven for people who see themselves as architects of their reality, not casualties of circumstance. We know we have agency over our agency, and we make the conscious choice to exercise it every day.
Treat the little things like big things. “Magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.” We’re all about the carefully crafted, the nitty-gritty, and the bespoke. Whether it’s hand cutting each nameplate, or debating the optimal shape of the dinner table, no detail is too small to sweat. This is decidedly not a "LGTM" culture. It is a culture where the little things are the big things.
Give your unvarnished opinions and unwavering support. We strive to be kind, not nice. Being nice and being kind are not one and the same. In our view, kindness means being generous, helpful, and compassionate. Nice can be used as a convenient shortcut; kindness cultivates long-term excellence. One of the most (counterintuitively) compassionate things you can do is to offer your unvarnished opinion — along with your unwavering support. That willingness to risk a fleeting moment of discomfort in exchange for someone else’s growth is long-term kindness. So while we strive to be a founder’s coach in the corner, part of that responsibility requires being the kick in the ass when they need it most. We try to be as honest as possible in every encounter, whether that’s bluntly telling a founder how they can step up their game, or delivering radical candor in our feedback for teammates.
Invent and wander. “Action produces information." We’re fans of starting small, shipping fast, and obsessively improving. The idea for the First Round Review wasn’t the product of a six-month strategy session — we wrote up a few blog posts and just shipped them. That’s because reality has a surprising amount of detail and edges that are difficult to anticipate. Each step — even the wrong one — reveals new information that improves your next move. We prefer to make the gap between having an idea and knowing if it works as small as possible.