All of our First-time founders articles
The Most Common Go-to-Market Questions This Expert Gets from Early Founders
Struggling to figure out your startup's early go-to-market? First Round's VP of GTM Emery Rosansky shares her expert advice and tactical templates for narrowing down your ICP, running a successful sales call, and accurate forecasting.
Kubecost’s Path to Product-Market Fit — How the Co-Founders Validated Their Idea with 100 Customer Conversations
In this post in our “Paths to Product-Market Fit” series, Webb Brown sits down with First Round partner Todd Jackson to tell the story of how he and his co-founder validated the idea for Kubecost.
The early user research playbook for founders — Jeanette Mellinger’s expert advice for validating your idea with high-quality interviews
Our guest today is Jeanette Mellinger, Head of UX Research at BetterUp and our User Research Expert in Residence at First Round. Jeanette unspools her tested playbook for high-quality customer interviews, with particular advice for founders in the very early days of validating an idea.
X1's Path to Product-Market Fit — How the Consumer Credit Card Company Pulled off a Pandemic Pivot
In our "Paths to Product-Market Fit" series, X1 founder and CEO Deepak Rao sits down with First Round partner Todd Jackson to share the dramatic story of how his company pivoted during the pandemic and found product-market fit with a bold launch strategy.
What founders need to know about acquisitions: Shopify’s Daniel Debow on M&A lessons from selling three startups
Our guest today is Daniel Debow, a VP of Product for Demand at Shopify. Daniel is a three-time founder and a seasoned M&A pro. Daniel oversaw the process of all three of his companies’ acquisitions and has helped continue to grow them at scale inside larger corporations.
Retool’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Lessons for Getting to 100 Happy Customers, Faster
In our "Paths to Product-Market Fit" series, Retool founder and CEO David Hsu sits down with First Round partner Todd Jackson to share how the internal tools company hypothesized, tested and iterated its way to 100 happy customers
Maven's Path to Product-Market Fit — Lessons for Leveraging Community in the Early Days
In the second post for our new series, "Paths to Product-Market Fit," Maven founder and CEO Kate Ryder sits down with First Round partner Todd Jackson to share the inside story of the first female-led telemedicine startup to achieve unicorn status.
