First Round Capital

Lenny's Podcast · Apr 11

A framework for finding product-market fit | Todd Jackson (First Round Capital)

Built a product-market fit framework of four levels from patterns across founders, and turned it into an eight-session program taking about 10 hours a week. It funded Todd Jackson's startup Cover in 2013.

Lenny's Podcast · Nov 24

The ultimate guide to founder-led sales | Jen Abel (co-founder of JJELLYFISH)

Refused to let portfolio company Sprig hire a salesperson before $1M ARR.

Tips

• Stay in founder-led sales until about $500K to $1M ARR▶ 35:53Sprig's investor First Round would not let them hire a salesperson before $1M ARR.

Lenny's Podcast · Dec 11

How Notion leveraged community to build a $10B business | Camille Ricketts

Invested early in Notion. Its First Round Review landed big-name guests early, reached readers at Google, Apple and Amazon, and posts took about 8 hours to write after interview prep.

Tips

• Treat content like a product and find content-market fit▶ 51:41First Round Review gained a disproportionate readership inside Google, Apple and Amazon and became the discovery path for First Round.
• Spend roughly 8 to 10 hours writing each high-quality post▶ 54:54First Round Review posts took about 8 hours of writing; Lenny's median is about 10 hours per post.
• Land a few big-name guests first to make a content platform credible▶ 49:45

Lenny's Podcast · Aug 18

The art of building legendary brands | Arielle Jackson (Google, Square, First Round Capital)

Arielle is marketer in residence and has worked half time there for nine years, helping seed-stage companies with naming, positioning, brand identity, a website and launch.

Tips

• Give the product a ridiculous code name until you do a real naming process▶ 31:48At First Round, she sees companies raise with a name they later find has a trademark conflict or is weak.