I've issued 5 term sheets and 4 of the teams have a female founder. If you think there's a pipeline issue, you aren't looking hard enough. 👀

1/ PUMPED to finally announce that I've officially joined @firstround as a Partner. I couldn't have imagined this when I joined their Angel Track program a few years ago, but now I'm on the team that's laser focused on helping Day 1 founders. firstround.medium.com/meet-m…

Today, I spent time with 5 @stripe alums -- 3 founders and 2 in VC. They are all *insanely* talented. Choose your employer wisely.

We're having our first kid in 24-48 hours 👶🏾. Advice? Words of warning? What stupid rookie parent shit should I not do? HELPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

🌶️Hot take: Too many leaders get stuck spending all their time trying to make a C player a B player, rather than keeping their A players happy, challenged, and motivated. Focus your energy on excellence, not mediocrity.

3 days into a NYC trip, I can confirm we're officially back. Activate Roaring 20s.

Hot take: EWR > JFK all day. I’d even almost consider a layover to avoid JFK traffic.

Stripe Fam: Hit me up if you are excited about early stage startups. We’ve got a ton of portfolio companies actively hiring. Today sucks, tomorrow will be better.

People ask where my dealflow is from. I’ve come to realize it’s a function of helping others when I had nothing to gain. Relationships date back to college days. You don’t realize it at the time but you almost always cross paths with ppl again. Treat everyone with respect ❤️

Bold ambition. Strong founding team solving a personal pain point. Compelling why now. Painkiller not a vitamin. Deep diligence work to validate the problem. Early momentum. Out of all of these traits that investors look for, it’s rare to find an early-stage startup that ticks each box. @DideroAI does — this team is the real deal. Super pumped to be leading their $7M seed round (with friends like @BoxGroup and @jaltma joining us @firstround). I thought I’d mark their launch day news (@Techcrunch article in next post) by trying to dig a bit more into the details of what they’ve gotten right on each of these fronts, in case it’s interesting for other founders thinking through how to structure their fundraising pitches. Vision: Didero is an AI procurement agent that automates the most common supply chain workflows for mid-market manufacturers. Their vision? Make trading with companies across the world as easy as trading across the street. Boom. The world of supply chain logistics may be a “dusty industry” as my partner @btrenchard likes to say, but this framing of the impact they hope to make on the world doesn't have to be. 2X founders with personal pain point: @tcpetit, @LPallhuber, and @tspencer15 make for a strong AND well-balanced team. For starters, everyone has already been a founder before, so they’ve already gone 0 to 1. But they’ve also lived the problem and developed extensive experience in supply chain. Pretty rare combo in my experience. While building Markai, Tim had hundreds of suppliers across several countries and was looking for tools to help him scale his supply chain operations, but he couldn’t find any better way to manage procurement than to hire a team of 15 people to do manual work. Love when founders decide to go out and build the tool they wish they had. Compelling why now: The “why now” piece is one that too many founding teams rush over IMO. Here’s Didero’s: Supply chains are only getting more complex. China used to be a one-stop shop, but now companies are looking to diversify their supply chain — good for the overall resilience of the system, but leads to significant additional work. Before advances in generative AI, this was tricky to solve — communicating in natural language is important here. It’s a smart application of AI to a legacy industry that’s running on 1990s software (at best). This quote from the team sums it up well: “If we ask supply chain teams to be strategic and navigate increasing complexity, we need to provide them with better tools and give them the mind space and data intelligence to do the crucial work they were hired to do.” Deep customer discovery work: Tom, Lorenz, and Tim are truly students of the space. They’ve gone what we @firstround like to call “unreasonably deep” in their pursuit of understanding the problem from every angle. When they pitched us earlier this year, they’d already done calls with 200+ supply chain/procurement professionals and industry experts to validate the problem, and were already working with more than a dozen design partners. I don’t take very many pitches where founders walk in having done that amount of homework. Painkiller, not a vitamin: This framework is a cliche for a reason — it’s definitely something that will be on investors’ minds as you tee up the problem you’re solving. Didero’s discovery work (and our own diligence with customer calls) revealed a ton of pain and manual work, specifically in the startups and mid-market segment. Right now, most procurement folks are drowning in manual tasks, with a lot of extremely taxing, repetitive work. Because supply chain teams are so bogged down with these processes, there is typically no time for strategic work and optimizing spend By helping people focus less on that and more on the higher order work these employees want to be doing like building supply chain resilience and building deeper relationships, Didero is solving a real pain point (and saving teams real $$$). Early momentum: The team has executed very quickly. Incorporated in December, and by their pitch to us in April they had many early design partners, strong hires, a lot of product built out and a feature-rich demo. They’ve already seen quick wins for customers, too, saving multiple early customers tens of thousands of dollars each month. Small example: One of their manufacturing customers used to spend every Monday morning wasting hours emailing every single supplier to ask for a status update on outstanding purchase orders. Confident that there will be even more to share in the months and years ahead — watch this space.

1/ Some quick reflections -- 90 days and 3 investments into a hopefully decades long career @firstround. Mileage may vary, but hopefully applicable to founders, operators, and investors. 🧵 👇

I know everyone is preaching that SF is dead and fully distributed is the future. 100% disagree. Spent the last 3 evenings with founders, co-workers, and angels. Excited for water cooler chat, hugs, IRL meals, serendipity and more. TAKE ME BACK TO THE OFFICE! #yayscience 💉

1/ On the heels of the news about my new gig, the @firstround Review team asked me to share some GTM lessons for founders. While there are stories from my Stripe days, I also reached out to the best leaders I know . Hope it's a helpful read: review.firstround.com/this-g…

Wrapped up 2 years at First Round, excited for the next 10!🚀 Sharing a few observations from the last couple of years: 1/ VCs are in the business of believing. Lucky to work with teams like @getpocus, @getLogicLoop, @ComposerTrade, @GuideDotCo, @diversioglobal, @Prepared_HQ, @letshighlight, onesafe.io, and @K2SpaceCo who make it easy to see hope. 2/ Founder-market fit is a bonus but passion for what you’re working on is table stakes. Being a founder is a long journey, and the only constant fuel is passion. 3/ Rockstar founding teams need commercial and technical talent. Rarely does a company succeed without both. 4/ Building an enduring business takes patience. Hustle but be long-term greedy and take things one day at a time. 5/ Test, measure and iterate. It’s never too early to adopt a metrics orientation. Keep yourself accountable. 6/ In investing, feedback cycles are long. Focus on perfecting your process, the results will follow. I’m incredibly grateful to work with the best in the industry @firstround and have become a better investor because of my partners. 7/ People forget that the VC-founder relationship is a two-way street. Founders, make sure you’re working with investors who will be good in good times, but also good in rough times. Character and reputations are forged in the darkest hours. 8/ My favorite part of being an investor is being able to share the “LFG” moments and celebrate all the wins, big and small. My goal is to make the founder journey feel a little less lonely 9/ We’re lucky to be in a business where we get to choose who we work with. This comes with a ton of responsibility. We should aim to build bigger doorways and longer tables. More on this to come.. 10/ On a personal note, I welcomed a baby boy in December. Dad life is fun and exhausting 🙂 I’m convinced that being a founder and being a parent are the hardest jobs out there.

My favorite thing is when you text someone for a reference and the response is "call me" or they literally call you immediately. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

The biggest hack for founder-led selling that too many people forget about: unlocking language-market fit. When you figure out the exact words to explain your product or service to prospective customers in a way that makes them go “wait, that’s EXACTLY what I’m looking for” you’ll find that selling gets A LOT easier. Great advice from @matthlerner in this @firstround Review article: bit.ly/3Ptqn1p

Looking for our next great teammate🙌🏾. HMU if you have Dennis Rodman 🐛 vibes (e.g. Do anything for the team, hustle to the max, don't take yourself too seriously)

1/ Celebrating 1 year as a Partner at @firstround this week! I got to sit down with @brettberson to discuss what I’ve learned over the course of the last year and what surprised me most about becoming a full-time investor. 🧵 review.firstround.com/podcas…

What is the late 30 / 40s equivalent of weddings? I'm getting serious anxiety realizing so many of close friends wont travel to the same town 5-10 times a year to hang/party/dance. Or I'm just realizing i'm getting old.

I *love* Angel Track. It's the reason a 1st generation 🇳🇬kid from the Chicago suburbs found his way into the wild world of VC. We're looking for someone special to take the program to the next level. Come join us :)

1/ One of my first investments as a partner at @firstround just hit an incredible milestone! After leading @getpocus’s seed round last year, they’ve just announced an additional $23M in funding to transform how GTM teams use data to drive revenue 💰forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2…

📣 Come work with me at @firstround! I’m hiring someone to fill @aparas23's shoes as my Chief of Staff. The CoS role is one of the best springboards to a career in venture. Learn more about the role and how to apply here: jobs.lever.co/firstround/c7f…

I owe my career in Venture to a sales gig I took on a whim @stripe. I think the primary jobs in tech are building a product and getting it in the hands of customers. If you're non technical, def consider the sales route :)

Feeling extra lucky today to be reunited with @cjc at @firstround after spending years together at @stripe, overlapping in several investments, and sharing an Angel Track cohort. LFG 🚀

📢 Founder PSA: DON'T hide the puck. The best founders proactively bring up big concerns and address it head on. Nothing tells me a business is going to fail like a founder who believes they have 0 competitors, $100 trillion TAM, and 90%+ gross margins. Any other PSAs to add? 👇

I recently marked my 3rd year @firstround, so here are 3 lessons I’ve learned since becoming a full-time investor after GTM leadership roles at @Stripe & @Mixpanel: 🎢 Marketing timing matters — but you can’t time the markets. I’ve seen very different markets in just 3 years. In 2021, rounds would be oversubscribed in days — FOMO ruled. In 2023, at times, it felt like downstream investors were on legit on strike. You quickly realize just how much the market environment affects operators, investors, and founders. Renewal rates, hiring strategies, positioning of new products (e.g. vitamin vs painkiller), and round sizes — everything changes. My takeaway? It’s easy to get caught up in timing the market right, but it’s better to stay focused on playing your own game. If you're thinking about starting a company but are worried it’s not the perfect time, start it anyway. It may never be the perfect time. If you want to be an angel investor or a full-time investor, do it now. The best investors are consistent during up AND down markets, and the best operators know how to persevere through hard times. THERE'S NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT. 📏 Investing and operating are a game of inches. Behind the most iconic seed investors are only a few gigantic outcomes — so one decision or one missed pitch can be the difference. Behind the most successful companies are a 10x eng hire, a massive enterprise contract with logo rights (that started as a cold DM), or a small product tweak (from a passing comment from an early user) that drives retention through the roof. The transformational inches are all around us — everyday. But we never know which day and in what situation. Succeeding in this game of inches requires caring irrationally more about winning than everyone else. DON’T GET BEAT ON HUSTLE. 🔌 Lean on the power of your network. I joined Stripe because a friend of a friend sold me on why payments were sexy and that Stripe would be worth $10B (@mattyalowitz, I think you may have missed a 0 😜). I met @K2SpaceCo & @Prepared_HQ (who both recently raised A’s and are working on some of the coolest problems) through people I actually consider friends rather than colleagues or co-investors. When I talk to a lot of founders about where they met their co-founder, it’s usually someone they've worked with before. Authentic networking is all about showing up everyday as your best self and being willing to help others, especially when they have nothing to offer you in that moment. The value of creating a deep network may not pay off until years later, but I guarantee you it does. Each day I’m more and more convinced I have the best job in the world — and I only got here because I was lucky enough to have a network that took a chance on a kid from the Midwest whose first gig was in baseball. Here’s to the next 3 years — LFG! 🚀🚀🚀

My orthopedist just read my hip x-rays and said "wow, I thought these scans were for a 55 y/o". 👴🏾@celinehalioua, can I volunteer my body for human trials of anti-aging potion?

I wonder how many people in Early Stage Tech are googling FCF formula for the 1st time? 🤔

Not too many of my investment memos have started off like this: “Building a spacecraft is literal rocket science.” To celebrate @K2SpaceCo's massive Series A news today, I’m revisiting my notes on the pre-seed bet @firstround made on this stellar team in 2022 — from the pitch that made me want to invest, to the progress I’ve seen since.

We currently know less about our oceans than we do about space. And while we can launch rockets and catch them midair back here on Earth, we’re still relying on Cold War-era sonar arrays, with people sitting in shacks manually listening to ocean sounds 24/7. What lies beneath has always been a mystery, but it’s increasingly becoming a massive vulnerability. Maritime technology has been neglected for years, just as we’re seeing widespread volatility and submarine-launched drone swarms, undersea cable attacks, and naval buildups. The same revolution happening with drones in the sky is coming to the water, and @alex__chu__ and @mateocernosek started @_AndrenaM_ to make sure America and her allies are ready. They’re building the first-ever AI-powered maritime sensing network of smart buoys using passive sonar + ML to detect and track everything underwater with acoustic signals. It’s a wildly difficult problem, but this duo is insanely scrappy, hardworking, and technically strong, and they’ve assembled a cracked team from SpaceX, Anduril, and Saronic. Honored to lead their seed here @firstround. Let's secure the seas. 🇺🇸🌊 P.S. They're hiring. And it’s hard to find a cooler gig than this. nitter.app/alex__chu__/status/192…

Nerding out this week at airplane camp 🥸. The sim is so realistic, I was *actually* sweating during my emergency procedures. 🥵

Your job as a CEO is to build fire departments, not put out fires. If you’re regularly putting out fires yourself, focus your time on how to enable others on your team to put out the fires." Can't-miss lessons from @SamCorcos on @firstround Review: review.firstround.com/an-exa…

5/ I share more about my story and what I look for in founding teams here. If you're building something (or even thinking about building something), would love to talk! Email me at meka dot asonye at first round dot com firstround.com/person/meka-a…

After coaching a lot of early-stage startups on their sales motions, here are the most common mistakes I’ve seen founders make: 1/ Moving to enterprise before they're ready. Enterprise sounds sexy because you can land one logo and it can all of a sudden translate into a mid-six-figure or seven-figure contract. There are some rare startups who can sell to enterprise out of the gate, but that's not the case for most. Don’t rush the process. 2/ Going for the hard sell without understanding the customer’s pain points. When you’re excited about your product, it’s easy to go into conversations with the attitude of ‘here's what I have, and here's what I want to sell you.’ But what you actually want to do is to understand the problems and priorities of your customer and find ways to plug into those. Trying to shoot your shot before you're ready can be fatal down the line. 3/ Focusing on short-term ROI. When I was building the sales team at Stripe, I always told the AES that their job isn’t to maximize our earnings in one year — it’s to maximize long-term value. Short-term orientation —> short-lived companies. Long-term orientation —> generational companies. Any others you would add to the list?

I’m so pumped to share that @letshighlight just raised an $18M Series A 🚀🚀 They were one of my investments in 2022 and, since then, have tested thousands of products, signed on some pretty big-name customers and are well on their way to making SaaS-powered product testing the dominant approach. Super proud of this team. LFG!! techcrunch.com/2023/08/16/hi…

Angel investing was the stepping stone into my current role at First Round Capital. If you’re looking to get started with writing your own checks, here are some of the learnings I wish I knew from Day One: 1/ Know who you are. The best founders will have dozens of angels who want to invest in them, so you have to convince them that you should be the person they choose. Think about what your strengths are, what types of experiences you bring to the table and the 3-5 things you have to offer. Then put this information in a one pager to make it easy to share with founders. Don’t have imposter syndrome. You’ve learned a lot over the course of your career. YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER EVERYONE! 2/ Choose where you want to put your money. Don’t try to be a jack of all trades (at first). Instead, choose a few industries you want to focus on and learn as much as you can about them — whether that’s by doing your own research or talking to other angels who invest in similar areas. You can expand over time but, at the beginning, don’t spread yourself too thin. 3/ Codify your approach. Some angels operate with a thesis in mind and proactively look for opportunities that fit their criteria. Others are more reactive and will invest in founders they really like. Either way, you need to codify your approach. If you’re more of the former, write down your thesis and filter all your opportunities through that. If you’re the latter, create a scorecard to help you understand how you evaluate each opportunity. This will make it easier to improve and iterate on your approach over time. 4/ Don't miss on the things right in front of you. If you have incredibly talented friends or colleagues starting something new, talk to them. Some of my most regretted non-investments would have taken my money (if i asked).

2/ Adding to the list of things I couldn't imagine when I started my career, today I'm in @Forbes (no mom, I’m still NOT a doctor). Grateful to @alexrkonrad for chatting with me and @btrenchard as we shared the story behind how I came to join @firstround. forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/…

Exciting news! Applications are now open for the 14th cohort of @firstround Fast Track 🎉 If you're looking to take your career to the next level (or help others level up) don't miss this opportunity! Learn more here: firstround.medium.com/crush-…

Angel Track gave me my start in angel investing. 10/10 recommend :) 😀

Yes. We. Do. 🙋🏾‍♂️✊🏾

I've been asked a few times how a kid from the midwest whose first gig was in baseball ended up as a partner @firstround. Answer: angeltrack.firstround.com/jo…

I thought I was a branding expert, until a friend pointed out that I hadn't *yet* try to make Mekaverse a thing. 🤔

🌉 Bay Area folks — @jaltma and I are hosting a dinner 🍝  for very early founders and operators to share ideas 💡 and collectively learn 🧠 from each other. If you are a future founder or founder at the pre-seed stage and are interested in joining please fill out this form: airtable.com/appLhGwDnOit05o….

In honor of @Prepared_HQ 's $16M Series A milestone today, I want to share what the team’s pitch deck looked like when they reached out to @firstround in 2021 — and what about it made me want to invest. 1/ An urgent problem. The problem around the outdated systems that support 911 calls was immediately clear. And it was a problem that, in my mind, could have an outsized impact (literally saving more lives) if addressed in the right way. 2/ A painkiller solution. I thought that what the team was proposing — of adding live video, GPS location, and text messages to 911 calls — could potentially be a 10x better solution if successful. A true painkiller vs. vitamin product. 3/ Early traction. When you’re pitching at the seed level, you don’t need to have robust metrics or millions in ARR, but you do at least need early signals that things are working — whether that’s customer love, testimonials or a well-received beta. Prepared was in 16 cities already, and one of the counties that adopted Prepared used the solution on nearly 40% of their calls after only 12 weeks on the platform. 4/ Market research. The founders had clearly done their homework on the 911 ecosystem and market. Some things hadn’t been proven out yet, but it was clear they weren’t going into this company-building journey blindly. What you DON’T see in these slides is the story the founders told to weave everything together. When I asked the founders why they decided to start this company, they told me they all grew up in or around towns with an active shooter — including Sandy Hook. To me, it was clear that this wasn’t just some business the founders started for fun. It was born out of painful lived experiences and a deep desire to make the world a better place. I always say that VCs are in the business of believing, and this team made me believe in their vision 🙂 I couldn’t be more proud of @michael__chime, Dylan Gleicher and Neal Soni on their Series A and everything else they’ve accomplished in the last two years. LFG team!!! 🚀

So PUMPED to finally share that @LizWessel has joined @FirstRound as our newest Partner 🚀🚀🚀 Liz is one of those exceptional people who puts 1000% of her time, heart and energy into what she does, and we are extremely lucky to have her as part of our partnership :) firstround.com/news/meet-fir…

1/ THRILLED to announce @diversioglobal's Series A led by @firstround 🤩 Here’s why we’re so excited about their vision to support D&I goals with data and actionable insights 👇🏾 techcrunch.com/2022/01/20/di…

Loved sharing my thoughts on angel investing, VC, and early stage sales with @beondeck and @sam_kirschner! Thanks so much for having me!

4/ I’m already deep into the work of helping technical and product oriented founders get to their first $1-2M in revenue — nailing ICPs, building conversion funnels, winning first customers, mentoring early sales hires, and upleveling execs leading large teams.

Pumped to be part of this fireside chat with the @stripe fam on 2/23! I’ll be talking about seed rounds, the ever-changing fundraising environment and more. Register here👇🏾stripe.events/howtoraiseasee…

Get to JFK / Newark. Then get on a plane to Chicago. Go to Lou's or Giordannos. There you will discover good pizza.

One of the best things I learned at @stripe was how to be customer obsessed. An example: in the early days, @patrickc and @collision would have lunch with a random user every Friday. Some of the most valuable feedback came from those conversations and shaped the product.

Am I the only one still watching Grey’s? I want to quit but it’s season EIGHTEEN. I can’t stop now right? 👩🏻‍⚕️

The feeling when you get off at Newark Penn instead of NEW YORK Penn. #beengonetoolong

The Angel Track community is 200 members strong now! Grateful to be a part of it. If you’re a founder who wants to get in front of more angel investors, @firstround just launched a common application. Fill it out or share it with founders you know! firstround.medium.com/the-an…

Excited to announce the application for @firstround’s fall Fast Track cohort! After now running this program 10 times, we’ve helped 2,000+ pairs forge impactful bonds. Apply by 8/1 to join our cohort of seasoned mentors and rising star mentees: firstround.medium.com/apply-…

2/ 🤓I spend my days geeking out with ridiculously talented people. Founders have such infectious energy. I'm inspired by their ambitions. People are *literally* trying to change the world🌎. I'm so lucky to be doing this work. Find a job where you don't have the sunday scaries.

3/ Huge thanks to those who've bet on and supported my career journey. 👀 @MarkShapiro, @jdewitt29, @chughesjohnson, and @amirmova. My time at @stripe, @mixpanel, @BainAlerts, and the @indians all laid the foundation for this exciting next chapter.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. One of my biggest regrets was not starting to angel invest earlier in my career. Angel track is a great launch pad 🚀. Get involved. TODAY! firstround.medium.com/callin…

Smells like a launch day! My partner @tjack has been working on an epic new project here @firstround these past couple of years, so excited to finally share it with the world today. 🙌🏿🚀 Introducing PMF Method, an intensive 14-week experience designed to help exceptional founders build epic B2B SaaS companies. In addition to digging into our nearly 20 years of data from 500+ pre-PMF investments, Todd has personally talked to 100s of founders on this topic to figure out what the most iconic enterprise companies did in their first 6-9 months and distill it into a single framework. Applications for PMF Method close May 7th, but if you’re curious to learn more about our approach, we’ve decided to publish the framework that we cover in the first session in a new long-form essay. As we do with programs like The Review and Angel Track, we’re all about freely sharing knowledge that we’ve put hundreds of hours of work into curating with the broader startup community. Links in the next post — apply or share with your founder friends!

Come work with me. Well mostly @tjack, but sometimes me :).

1/ 🔥FIRED UP for @ComposerTrade’s launch 🚀 today, especially since it's the first time I can share more about my investments @firstround. 🙂🙌🏿 Here's why we backed their vision to give retail investors access to hedge-fund like strategies: benjaminrollert.medium.com/i…

Small drones are taking over the battlefield, but they still have an Achilles heel: GPS jamming. That’s why I’m extremely proud to lead Theseus’ seed as they build an unjammable replacement. The disproportionate value that scaled production of cheap drones can deliver is now plain for all to see (contributing to the real fear that the USA is behind here). But because GPS has been so good for so long, we’ve become reliant on it, creating a massive threat. Ukraine is losing 80K drones a month primarily due to jamming. And it’s not just a problem abroad either. Cartels are now using GPS jammers at our southern border to prevent surveillance. Current solves are to 1) manually fly drones to bypass jamming or 2) shell out $$$ for heavier equipment that only works for higher-end drones. Theseus is building the world’s first micro Visual Positioning System (VPS) that plugs into any existing drone and simulates the same GPS signal it would have gotten otherwise. It’s what I like to think of as a “water in the desert” kind of product — a 10x better solution that's cheaper and lighter than anything else on the market, letting us do missions we otherwise couldn’t do. It’s also one of the best examples of tech company speed meeting national security needs. Grateful for the chance to work with @sachalevy3, @ilaffey2 and @CarlSchoeller. They are hiring engineers right now. The opportunity to make an impact couldn’t be bigger. More below on their story in @TechCrunch today in a great write-up from @CharlesRollet1.

A campaign we can all get behind: ABOLISH FEES. No more extra for guac. Death to the Airbnb cleaning fee, 7% healthy SF, hotel “resort” fees in manhattan, and $100 “amenity fee” for a closed gym and parking I didn’t touch 😐. Fee-flation has to go. 👋🏿

The basic blocking and tackling of early GTM still matters, even (especially) in the AI era. That’s why I’m pumped to put my years in the GTM trenches to use in a new series launching today on the @firstround Review, called 0-$5M. I spent months sitting down with an epic group of founders and early revenue leaders to dive really deep into the commercial side of early-stage startups, and what it takes to cross the threshold of that first few million in ARR. Each month, we’ll publish a new installment on GTM topics that I’ve seen all sorts of founders grapple with, along with hard-won advice from folks who have been in those shoes before. Think of it as the early GTM brain trust you wish you had on speed dial. First up in the series: how to nail founder-led sales. Here’s the stacked group you’ll hear from: -Mike Molinet, founder of @branchmetrics ($100M+ in ARR) and now @thenaplatform -Sam Taylor, first enterprise sales rep @dropbox, also GTM leader at @quip, @loom -@martabralic, founder/CEO of @pomelocare, early at @flatironhealth -@laskerer, one of the first sales hires at @stripe, now CRO at @VardaSpace -@alexa_grabell, founder/CEO of @getpocus These aren't your typical LinkedIn bro tips about "crushing your number.” These are proven tactics that worked, focused on laying a sound commercial foundation.

I’ve heard hundreds of early-stage startup pitches, and I’ll say that there are THREE things that help founders get started on the right foot (you might be surprised by how basic some of these are): 1/ Share your deck for a pitch meeting in advance. It helps us come more prepared and saves you time if it's not going to be a fit. If you feel like you need to provide a voiceover for us to understand what your product is/does, then that’s probably not a good sign. 2/ Save your questions until the end. You only have 30 minutes. Focus on using that time to make an impact. You’ll always have a chance to ask questions later. But you won’t get a second chance at a first impression. 3/ Don’t just run through the slides — tell a story. Founder-market fit is one of the most critical things to look for in the early stages, so if you want to convince a VC that you have founder-market fit, have a compelling story. One that’s authentic and explains WHY the problem you’re trying to solve for keeps you up at night.

We recently brought together an epic group of current and former Stripes at the @firstround 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.

One of the most COMMON mistakes I see founders make with their early sales hires: jumping to a commission-based compensation model too soon ❌ Why is this a mistake? 1/ I would never set a target where a significant chunk of someone's comp is at risk unless I have reasonable certainty that they’re able to achieve that target. 2/ If you don’t have that level of insight, you’re not ready for a more mature comp model yet. Instead, default to base salary and equity. 3/ Then give the sales rep a hypothetical target and check in throughout the quarter to see if that target makes sense. If you’re 10% to target or 500% to target, you know your numbers are off. 4/ Test, iterate, and repeat until you feel comfortable with the target you set. When you’re ready, you can roll out a more mature compensation model for your sales team.

Last day of H1. Good luck to all my closers out there. Start fast, finish stronger! 💪🏾💰🚀

8/ 🔋 Happy Memorial Day ya'll. If you can, use the long weekend for pampering and self-care. Take some time to decompress and recharge your batteries . You can find me --> ☀️🛩 🏌️‍♂️🚴 🍷 📚 .

7/ Don't get caught thinking about life as a zero-sum game where there are winners and losers. Invest in grow the market (vs take share) companies and people. Don't be transactional. Make short-term sacrifices for long-term gains 💪.

I’ve been part of a few events this year where I shared my thoughts on how to raise a seed round in today’s environment. Here are a few takeaways that seemed to resonate with founders: 1/ Don’t hide the puck. The best founders proactively bring up big concerns and address it head on. Nothing tells me a business is going to fail like a founder who believes they have 0 competitors, $100 trillion TAM, and 95%+ gross margins. 2/ Remember that this is a two-way process. Don’t throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. Do your research, and only reach out to investors who you believe will add value to your business. I know it’s hard when you’re eager to find funding but, trust me, you’ll be happier down the road if you take a more targeted approach. 3/ Conviction > timing. A lot of founders worry about the right time to raise their seed — especially these days, given the state of the market. My take: only do it when you have conviction that this is what you want to spend the next 10 years of your life on.

PSA: Don't check your 401k balances today 🙈 📉

Everyone is talking about how much has changed over the last few years in early-stage investing, but I’d argue there’s more that HASN’T changed. 1/ Investors HAVEN’T stopped caring about founder-market fit. Especially in the early stages, VCs are still prioritizing founders who have a really deep understanding of the space they’re operating in (and a unique insight). Speaking personally, I don’t care who is doing the trendiest thing in AI or superconductors or crypto. I want to back founders who are building companies that are deeply meaningful to them. 2/ The best companies HAVEN’T stopped putting their customers first. If you look at the companies that are raising and thriving in this tough environment, it’s the ones that have been, and continue to be, customer obsessed. These founders are always finding creative ways to give their customers a high-touch experience and are focused on long-term relationship building > short-term ROI. 3/ Hair-on-fire problems HAVEN’T stopped mattering. The problems that mattered last year or the year before still matter today. And they’ll continue to matter until they’re solved. Those are the ideas that the partnership at @firstround will always be on the lookout for.

Hustle beats talent when talent doesn’t hustle. #MondayMotivation 🏃🏿💪🏿

5/ Bring your whole self to work -- every damn day. Be yourself. Let people see your weird and goofy side. Life is hard enough without trying to be what others want you to be. Don't try to win Best Actor 🏆.

So psyched for @NeelKunjur and @KaranKunjur announcing @K2SpaceCo’s $110M Series B on Bloomberg today. It’s been remarkable how fast this team has turned an insanely ambitious “imagine if” into “watch this” (literally — I had the privilege of witnessing them fly their hardware in a @SpaceX launch just a month ago). The team has already made some epic moves this year, starting off strong with their first demo in space, and they just brought on the former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy to head up strategy. They had a killer 2024, too: - Clinched a major gov contract to get its “Gravitas” mission off the ground in 2026 — and operate its extra-large satellite in medium-Earth orbit - Expanded from a 15K sq ft factory ➡️180K sq ft factory to ramp up production of its multi-orbit satellite - Grew the team from 25 ➡️90 And they’re hiring, if you want to join the literal rocket ship. 🚀🛰️

Founders, THIS IS YOUR JOB. But it's also your edge. It's something no slick early sales hire will ever have. Through discovery & customer convos, you develop 2 superpowers: - True subject matter expertise - Deep conviction to spend 10 years on an idea Don't trade that away

Overheard woman + best friends talking poolside about all the things her boyfriend “better not dare do” during their proposal. I see him in the locker room. Should I warn him or let him fail? 😬

6/ ⏰ Time is your most scarce resource. Analyze how you are actually spending time and how you wish you were. The 80/20 rule usually applies. Find that 20 and get comfortable pushing back and saying no. FOMO was so 2010s.

The hardest part of being a salesperson/founder is the constant rejection. I know, I’ve been there. But here’s how I like to think about it: Every slap in the face makes you better. Ask yourself: What went wrong? What can I do better next time? That’s where the magic happens 💥

To the person who stole my Postmates Blue Barn salad on an 830-5 pm back to back zoom day. I'm not vindictive, but I hope you get food poisoning. 🤮

Huge congrats to the @thenaplatform team on their $5M seed round! Messaging platforms like Slack are the present and future of customer communications, and Thena is making that experience better for everyone involved. Pumped to be part of the ride. LFG!!! 🚀 thena.ai/post/journey-to-the…

Surface-level “AI-powered for X” or “ChatGPT-wrapper app for Y” pitches are a dime a dozen these days. Digging deeper to find a personal motivation to solve a *real* problem and *genuinely useful* applications of AI (plus any early green shoots that can turn into real traction) is a killer company building combo right now. The @Prepared_HQ team checked every box for me here back when I led @firstround's investment in their seed round in 2021. And with all the progress from @michael__chime and team since, doubling down for their $27M Series B was a no-brainer. Here’s how they’ve framed their story — whether it’s on the TODAY show or in a fundraising pitch — in a way that I think could be useful for other founders to learn from: Genuinely useful applications of AI We’re seeing the future of technology unfold every day, but there are “dusty industries” and forgotten corners that are often left behind. 240 million 911 calls take place every year, and the Prepared team is helping these agencies go from legacy, landline-era tech to genuinely useful (and life-saving) applications of AI. One small but powerful feature that will help save lives as an example: Two-way audio translation for 911 calls in Spanish that will automatically translate to English text for the call-taker and be spoken back to the caller through an AI-generated voice. (Right now, most 911 call-takers must conference with a third-party translator and wait for them to join the call, which wastes precious time during an emergency.) Personal motivation to solve a real-world problem When I asked the founders why they decided to start this company, they told me they all grew up in or around towns with an active shooter — including Sandy Hook. It’s not just some business the founders started for fun. It was born out of painful lived experiences and a deep desire to make the world a better place. From early green shoots to serious momentum Prepared scaled from an early demo to working with 16 cities back in 2021 to now partnering with ~1K agencies that help protect around 30% of the U.S. population—every time I hear this stat I’m blown away. 🤯 I fully believe they’re on the right path to push that number up to 100%, saving countless lives in the process—glad they have additional fuel to get there. 🚀

Confession: I love the motivational quotes from my @onepeloton rides. Going to try to share one every week because sharing = caring.

Super proud of all the big news coming out of @K2SpaceCo today: — $4.5M in contracts landed with the DoD over the last few months — Tripled team growth since March — An additional $7 million raise in capital Hard to believe that they only launched 14 months ago. Next up: first satellite launch in 2025 🚀🚀 techcrunch.com/2023/10/17/k2…

3/ 👯‍♀️Some say VC can be lonely. It doesn't have to be. Join a team where folks have your back - professionally and personally. Find people who will pump you up when you're doubting yourself AND give you shit when you think you've got it mostly figured out.

When I first met @graunked from @getsafetykit, his story hit close to home. He led risk review systems at Stripe, scaling from 20 internal reviewers to 2K+ outsourced agents checking for fraud and content issues. Back when I was at Stripe myself, one of the many jobs I had was managing the sales vendor support side of the house and it was brutal. Dealing with turnover (it was hard to get folks to stick around for more than 6 months), training and quality control quickly felt like a full-time recurring job. It’s back-of-house business processes like these that are the perfect place to apply AI. Especially in the case of risk, compliance & safety, it’s super important work, but the jobs are difficult and sometimes even traumatizing for humans depending on the content they’re reviewing. And it’s virtually impossible to keep up with the pace/scale of scams, fraud, crime, harassment, etc. What’s more is that human accuracy in reviewing is only around 80%, aka 1 in 5 decisions are wrong. When Upwork put SafetyKit to the test recently, it hit 95% accuracy. Thanks to the rare mix of BPO knowledge, AI expertise, and engineering chops on this founding team, SafetyKit’s AI agents are already processing 500K reviews daily and protecting hundreds of millions of users across platforms like Faire, Substack, Patreon, and even one of the four major card networks. Grateful First Round got the chance to play a small part in SafetyKit’s story, leading their (never announced) seed round and doubling down in their $27M Series A this year. More on what they’re up to below.

Think you need a 20-person team to break into enterprise? @reductoai cracked the Fortune 10 with just 4. Founder @aditabrm shares how staying lean became their biggest advantage. Listen on In Depth: review.firstround.com/podcas…

Loved chatting with @TonnaObaze about my journey to tech and early stage investing. Appreciate y’all having me on the pod 🎤.

The tooling stack for sales leaders is broken. I haven't met one CRO who says their SFDC hygiene, pipeline forecasts, or lead scoring tools are actually working. Honored to be partnering with @alexa_grabell and @getpocus to transform product-led sales at modern SaaS companies.

Stoked for the entire @gumloop team on their $17M Series A!

🔥 Hot take: I’ve torn my ACL, meniscus, achilles and had hip surgery (x2). Despite that, I can confirm that the Dentist sucks ways more than the Doctor / Surgeon. How can tiny little teeth torture you so much?

Passionate about Product-led growth and looking to be an early startup employee (hurry and you can be #1 😀)?! Join @alexa_grabell and the team at @getpocus. They are hiring! careers.pocus.io/

It’s uncommon for first sales hires to work out…but why is that? The 3 most common mistakes I see startup founders make are: 1/ Hiring at the wrong level. Many founders hire someone who is too junior or too senior. From what I’m seen, the latter is more common. It’s easy to get distracted by titles like ‘Head of Sales at Big-Name Company‘ or by someone’s 20 years of experience in the industry your company is in. But you have to remember that the first sales hire needs to actually SELL. Someone who is that senior probably hasn’t cold outreached anyone in over a decade. 2/ Hiring too early. Founders often don’t recognize their unique ability to sell to a customer and try to outsource that work to someone else too soon. The problem: if you do this, you have no scaffolding in place. No learnings, processes or insights to pass onto that first hire. Which means you’re not setting them up for success. 3/ Hiring someone you don’t actually need. A lot of people automatically look for an AE for their first sales hire because that’s what everyone else does. But you might not actually need an AE. Maybe that hire doesn’t even need to be in sales. Always look at what your bottlenecks are and hire whoever you need to unblock you — whether that’s an AE, BDR or even a marketer. Any other theories as to why that first sales hire is so hard to get right? 🤔

I love America 🇺🇸. I can’t imagine *ever* living elsewhere but Europeans do pizza and summer properly. Americans pretend. Sad but true.

My work at Stripe and Mixpanel exposed how hard it can be for companies to understand their financial data and draw insights. I <3 the approach Subscript is taking to help B2B SaaS cos like Flipcause get better insights from metrics. 1st case study live! subscript.com/casestudies/fl…

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is a habit, not an act. #MotivationalMonday

Big news from @benrollert and the @composertrade team! Navigating investments (esp under current market conditions) is overwhelming & time-consuming, but they're changing that. I'm pumped to see the team take their platform to the next level. LFG! 🚀 💰📈prnewswire.com/news-releases…

1/❤️ Most of my friends know that sports and early-stage startups have a special place in my heart.  What’s less obvious is that these passions of mine actually have A LOT in common: 🧵👇🏿

There’s a lot of talk about rebuilding American infrastructure these days. But some of the most important (and overlooked) infrastructure might be the one that responds when you dial 3 little numbers. There’s high call volumes, understaffing, technology from the Clinton administration, even though lives are on the line. Backing @michael__chime and the @Prepared_HQ team in their 2021 seed round @firstround -- and doubling down since then -- was a no-brainer for me. They’re hard at work to bring AI to our country’s emergency response, making our infrastructure more resilient (and faster, too). And they’ve made incredible progress in just 4 years (working with 1K+ agencies now, protecting nearly ONE HUNDRED MILLION Americans in 49 states). Big milestone today with an $80M Series C led by @GeneralCatalyst. Couldn’t be prouder to continue supporting this team that’s working tirelessly to increase the chance that someone having their worst moment can quickly get the help they need. LFG.