First Round is reinventing venture capital for founders who are at ‘Day 1.’ We connect entrepreneurs with the knowledge, people and companies they need for maximum impact. Uber, Roblox, Square, and Notion are some of the companies we’ve been fortunate to partner with — and we’re just getting started.

About The Role

In the earliest days of company building, startups typically put market intelligence and research on the backburner because it costs too much and requires too heavy of a lift. This leaves a goldmine of insights undiscovered: “What do my competitors perceive to be my strengths and weaknesses?”, “What matters most to my prospects when making a purchase decision?”, “Are my customers happy with our product and support?”

Generating a pipeline of research and mining for intelligence to answer questions like these can help founders make strategic decisions around pricing, positioning, and product roadmap with more conviction. That’s why we’re building First Round Market Intelligence with the aim to bring customer and market insights to each First Round founder.

As Research Lead, you’ll focus on helping founders find answers to their most burning questions about the markets they’re building in. This will take several forms, including interviewing experts, customers and potential customers.

In This Role, You Will

• Help our founders source experts to answer their most pressing business questions through outreach and qualifying interviews.
• Conduct interviews with relevant experts to help our portfolio companies find answers to their most pressing business questions.
• Prepare summary materials based on your learnings from the interviews that you can share back with the founder.
• Create thought leadership on the sectors in which we are invested to help our current and future founders building in those areas.
• Work closely with our investment partners to conduct due diligence on new investment opportunities.
• Manage and continuously evaluate our suite of expert network vendors to ensure that we have relationships with only the highest quality providers.
  
  

We Are Looking For Someone Who Has

• 3+ years of experience running research-heavy client-facing projects and a comfort with getting up to speed on new (potentially technical) topics quickly e.g. investigative/business journalism, qualitative research, consulting, product management, law.
• A passion for new technology and business strategy/operations. Learning about new business models and markets through interviewing industry experts and extensive reading excites rather than exhausts you.
• A strong ownership mentality — you are self-motivated and enjoy moving quickly on new opportunities without explicit direction, as well as doing whatever it takes to make the offering and our founders successful
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to effectively communicate the right level of detail based on the audience
• Outstanding time management and project management skills – you will be running several market research projects in parallel (on behalf of internal and external stakeholders) so being able to track and report on status, blockers, and changing scope against tight deadlines is key.

Check out our values that guide our work

• We serve entrepreneurs. We owe them our unvarnished opinion and unwavering support.
• We honor quality. The little things matter. High standards and attention to the craft are valued here.
• We favor action and think long-term. We decide and execute with urgency today. We define success with the long-term in mind.
• We cherish diversity and inclusion. The strongest communities around the world are diverse and inclusive. We work hard to make sure ours is, too.
• We do things our own way. We choose to be original and find unique, creative solutions to our biggest problems.
• We have fun. We take our work seriously, but not ourselves.

First Round is dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workspace. We encourage people from underrepresented groups to apply because we believe that our diverse team helps us build and serve the strongest community of entrepreneurs.