About First Round

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.

About First Round's Founder Success Team

At First Round, we invest in founders who possess not just strengths, but areas of true genius, whether it’s technical skill, product judgement, industry expertise, or a deep understanding of their customer’s pain point. But on the other side of every spike in talent are a few areas that are still underdeveloped, parts of the business where a founder doesn't have the skills and expertise — yet.

Simply put, there are many gaps that have yet to be closed when you’re only a 3-person startup. On the path to building a company of consequence, the very best founders are able to level up, both in terms of their own capabilities (by developing new muscles) and in the team around the table (by bringing in complementary talent).

That’s where our Founder Success team comes in, during the pivotal early years of company building. We fill in where we can until there's genius up and down the org chart, closing gaps around existing strengths while helping in the key growth areas on the transition from founder to founder & CEO. This might involve teaching a technical founder how to sell and take their product to market, or guiding them through making their first key hires.

About the Role

*This role begins as a part-time contract position, with the possibility of transitioning to full-time for the right candidate. You will need to be San Francisco or New York-based (3 days/week in-office).

This is a founder-facing, in-the-trenches role supporting our founders in landing their first few dozen customers. This isn’t armchair advising; it’s getting your hands dirty alongside (largely technical, largely B2B) founders. You’ll be both a strategist and an operator. Here’s what we mean by that:

As a strategist, you might recommend whether a company should go with a value-based pricing strategy or a competitive pricing strategy based on their business, competition, product etc. As an operator, you’ll help them actually build their value-based model in Excel.
As a strategist, you might teach a founder best practices in running discovery calls. As an operator, you might listen to 5 of their calls and provide tactical feedback on a live call.
As a strategist, you might help a founder prepare for a big pilot wrap up call by giving them a recommended agenda. As an operator, you might build their pilot structure from the ground up in Notion.
We’ve been supporting founders in this way for many years. With demand at an all-time high, we’re looking for additional experts to pinch-hit as early GTM hires until our companies hire one of their own.

Your core responsibilities will include:

Build the foundation: Figure out the early