About First Round

First Round is an early-stage venture capital firm that helps startups like Notion, Roblox, Uber, Square, Verkada, Together and 500 others tackle company building firsts. From in-person experiences within a vibrant community of fellow builders to a deep bench of experts, we help tiny companies get big while constantly reimagining the role of venture capital.

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 Program Director Role

The role of the Program Director on the Founder Success team is leading the ideation, curation, planning and execution of programs and events that fill in those gaps and help founders develop new, crucial competencies. This could look like planning and hosting a 3-day retreat for B2B founders or producing a half-day fundraising best practices workshop. The nature of these events and programs can vary quite a bit between more traditional events like founder dinners to more complex, creative programs like mentorship "matchmaking" with a fellow founder who's a few steps ahead. But the common threads across all of our programs are: (1) Curating remarkably impactful experiences and (2) Building tight-knit, long-lasting communities.

Your core role as Program Director will include:

• Program Strategy: There are limitless ways to support founders on their 0 to 1 company building journey. Your job is to deeply understand founder needs and goals and build a strong POV on when and how to leverage different types of programs and events to meet those needs, and deliver a deeply impactful experience for founders. You’ll generate new program experiments to run that you believe will help founders achieve one or more of the objectives above and reinforce their advocacy with First Round. And most importantly, you’ll be super data driven — focused on impact and ROI of the programs and events you invest in.
• Program Planning and Execution: You’ll spend much of your time thinking about how to curate exceptional experiences for founders. You’ll be responsible for program/event themes, goals, invite lists, content and sometimes logistics to execute incredible experiences for founders. Some of the existing programs you’ll own are Founder Retreats, Founder Dinners, Unconferences, Sourcing Parties and Salon Dinners.
• Event / Program Hosting: Be present in San Francisco and occasionally other markets to host or co-host events. You’ll host at least 2x events in San Francisco / month and 4x events across the US / year.
• Relationship Building and Management: Build deep and longstanding relationships with key stakeholders in the First Round community. Your primary relationships will be with First Round founders, but you’ll also build relationships through bringing together other communities like pre-seed founders, founding operators and founder mentors. In addition to building these relationships, you will build a system to understand who these people are, what value they deliver to our ecosystem and develop long-lasting advocacy.

You could be a great Program Director at First Round if:

• You have a minimum of 7 years of experience.
• You have a deep understanding of the customer. You live and breath startup life and deeply understand and empathize with the needs of early stage founders. You’ve either worked as an operator in multiple startups or you’ve worked with an incubator, accelerator or early-stage VC in a direct, founder-facing role.
• You’re extremely creative, iterative and innovative. You love the idea of taking a problem or goal and coming up with new ways to tackle that problem or achieve that goal. You’re always thinking about how to do things better, faster, smarter. You’re scrappy and know how to just figure stuff out.
• You’re amazing at building community. You love building relationships and bringing communities together. You remember everyone’s name, and they remember yours. You’re an amazing connector and facilitator. And you have a knack for knowing how to create magical moments during in-person experiences.
• You embody extreme ownership. You own your function through and through. No one has to tell you the next step to take or the next email to write. You’re extremely autonomous and are a driver, pushing things forward and proactively unblocking barriers on the way to the goal. You always have an SLA with yourself around fast response times. And nothing is too small for you to do. You’ll mingle with C-level execs and change a lightbulb at the same event.
• You are obsessed with details and process. Maybe you were a former wedding planner or event coordinator. You might be the one organizing group vacations and sending out Venmo requests. You are absolutely on every little detail and your peers and friends comment on your impressive detail-orientation. You remember the little things and never let a ball drop.
• You have exceptional taste. You pride yourself on your taste and judgement and have a clear eye for quality. At a dinner, you notice the texture of the napkins and whether the lightbulbs are white or yellow lighting.

Please note this role is based in San Francisco and requires at least 3 days per week in-office.

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. Going above and beyond for our founders is what we do. We strive to be a founder's most valuable investor. That’s why we don't pull term sheets, and we're always in for their second round. We respond to their emails in hours, not days. We build candidate pipelines, unprompted. We arrange meal deliveries when they become a new parent. Simply put, we go above and beyond to earn that right to be their first call every time there’s a bump in the road.
• Give your unvarnished opinions and unwavering support. We strive to be kind, not nice. 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.
• Treat the little things like big things. Everything can always be made better. 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.
• Make speed a habit. Whatever you’re building, remember that now is better than two weeks from now. We’re fans of starting small and iterating quickly. No matter what we’re launching, you’ll likely hear this question in a meeting: “How soon can we get something out there?”
• Invent and wander. Never stop experimenting. The best ideas are born out of experimentation. Our flagship programs have always come from our penchant for going out on a limb and approaching problems with a different perspective.
• Build wider doorways and longer tables. We're in the business of backing people and betting on their ideas — no matter where they come from. While talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is not. First Round is dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workspace and we encourage people from underrepresented groups to apply!