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.

We’re looking to add a Chief of Staff to our team who will work directly with Partner Liz Wessel as her trusted right hand in person in San Francisco.

Chiefs of Staff at First Round supercharge our investment team by creating and managing processes behind-the-scenes that deliver world-class services and experiences to entrepreneurs. They engage across all functions of First Round, including reviewing new investment opportunities, special projects, partner branding/marketing, portfolio engagement, and management of administrative staff. This position is a balance between strategy and sharp execution.

Your Responsibilities Will Include:

• Managing and tracking new investment opportunities

• Managing and tracking relationships and communication within the First Round community and partner networks

• Conducting research and investment diligence

• Initiating and leading special projects (building internal products and programs, research deep dives, etc.)

• Drafting, managing, editing and processing all kinds of communication (including emails)

• Managing partner projects and events

This position is not:

• A 9-5 job. We work when founders need us to work with/for them – which often means late nights and weekends.

• An investing role. You will not be investing, but you will be joining most pitches that your partner is leading/on.

• For people who have investing experience at another VC firm. We’re looking for people who have no VC experience.

• A partner-track role. Instead, it is an ideal opportunity to get involved with helping incredible founders and to learn from the best of the best.

• Expected to source companies or to be directly entrepreneur-facing. Rather, you will work with Liz to help review, analyze and prioritize existing deal flow and support our portfolio in a mostly behind-the-scenes way.

This is a unique opportunity in which individuals from many backgrounds could excel. Here are just a few examples of profiles we think could be great:

• An operations guru with startup experience who thrives keeping the trains running on time with little oversight.

• An aspiring entrepreneur who wants a rare window into the VC and fundraising side of the business.

• A business generalist with a passion for technology and a penchant for learning new things fast.

• A software engineer who wants to move into the business or operations side of things

You Might Be a Great Fit If:

• You’re fascinated by technology and how today’s entrepreneurs are shaping the future. You don’t necessarily need deep knowledge of the venture capital industry, but you should be excited about the field and eager to learn the business quickly.

• You’re curious and intuitive — a creative and unconventional thinker, yet also highly analytical and logical. You're a strong writer and pride yourself on thoughtful, succinct and eloquent communication. You know the right questions to ask, as well as when to listen and learn. You have the polish and presence to regularly interact with seasoned CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs.

• You are extremely detail-oriented, run a tight ship, and want to create an A+ experience for those you work with. Nothing is too small and you love to go above and beyond what others expect of you. You resonate with the quote “Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.”

• Most importantly, you are a fast learner and laser focused on execution with the drive to get things done. You’re deeply organized, detail oriented and reliable above all else.

• You have at least 3-5 years of full-time working experience.

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.