Tactical advice to change your company and your careerFor over 10 years, First Round Review has published weekly-ish advice from the very best builders in tech. We get out of the way and let the experts speak directly to you about what they believe is most important, from advice for finding product-market fit to delivering impactful feedback. || https://review.firstround.com

Episodes85

Updated1 month ago

About

For over 10 years, First Round Review has published weekly-ish advice from the very best builders in tech. We get out of the way and let the experts speak directly to you about what they believe is most important, from advice for finding product-market fit to delivering impactful feedback. || https://review.firstround.com

Episodes

First Round Staff

Firsthand: How I Bet On Clay (And It Bet On Me)

I joined Clay as one of its earliest employees and a reluctant marketing hire. This is how, over the last three years, we built a role around my strengths as a storyteller, scaled past $100M ARR, and created a brand that startups study.

29 mins

Firsthand: How I Bet On Clay (And It Bet On Me)

First Round Staff

Why great product leaders should stop obsessing over the roadmap | Diya Jolly (CPO & CTO of Xero)

Diya Jolly, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Xero unpacks her three-bucket framework for delegating decisions, why the most important part of a CPO’s role is to drive team-wide ambition, and why the best executives need to spend half their time thinking, not doing.

1 hrs 1 mins

Why great product leaders should stop obsessing over the roadmap | Diya Jolly (CPO & CTO of Xero)

First Round Staff

Inside Artemis' "AI vs AI" war | Shachar Hirshberg & Dan Shiebler (Co-founders, Artemis)

In this episode of In Depth, First Round Partner Josh Kopelman sits down with Shachar Hirshberg and Dan Shiebler, co-founders of Artemis, the AI-native security platform that just emerged from stealth with $70M in combined seed and Series A funding.

59 mins

Inside Artemis' "AI vs AI" war | Shachar Hirshberg & Dan Shiebler (Co-founders, Artemis)

First Round Staff

Scaling DoorDash to market dominance | Christopher Payne (Former COO, DoorDash)

In this latest episode of Executive Function, Brett sits down with Christopher Payne, who spent a decade as President and COO at DoorDash, helping scale the company from roughly 70 employees to the dominant food delivery platform in the US. Before DoorDash, Christopher held senior operating roles at Amazon and

1 hrs 6 mins

Scaling DoorDash to market dominance | Christopher Payne (Former COO, DoorDash)

Nate Martins

Reluctantly Influential: Inside Lenny Rachitsky’s Demandingly Chill Life

With millions of subscribers across platforms, Lenny Rachitsky is one of the most prolific people in tech media. But what drives him — and what keeps him up at night — is a story most people don’t know.

41 mins

Reluctantly Influential: Inside Lenny Rachitsky’s Demandingly Chill Life

First Round Staff

What nobody tells engineers about becoming a CEO | Jay Kreps (Co-founder and CEO, Confluent)

Jay Kreps is the co-founder and CEO of Confluent, the company built around Apache Kafka — the open-source data streaming platform he originally built while at LinkedIn.

1 hrs 12 mins

What nobody tells engineers about becoming a CEO | Jay Kreps (Co-founder and CEO, Confluent)

First Round Staff

Guideline's Path to Product-Market Fit — The Early Decisions That Powered Its Acquisition by Gusto

Ten years after shaking up the retirement fund industry for SMBs, Guideline has been acquired by Gusto. Here, co-founder Kevin Busque shares the early-stage decisions and pivots that put the startup on the path to success.

24 mins

Guideline's Path to Product-Market Fit — The Early Decisions That Powered Its Acquisition by Gusto

First Round Staff

Serval's Path to Product-Market Fit — Win Enterprise Buyers by Treating Them Like Consumers

Notes from an AI founder taking a swing at a hundred-billion-dollar incumbent.

19 mins

Serval's Path to Product-Market Fit — Win Enterprise Buyers by Treating Them Like Consumers

First Round Staff

Snowflake’s first sales hire on scaling from $0 to $3.5B | Chris Degnan (Former CRO, Snowflake)

Chris Degnan was the first sales hire at Snowflake and spent 11 years scaling the company from zero to $3.5 billion in revenue as its CRO, working alongside four different CEOs and learning from each one.

1 hrs 6 mins

Snowflake’s first sales hire on scaling from $0 to $3.5B | Chris Degnan (Former CRO, Snowflake)

First Round Staff

So You Want to Hire a Forward Deployed Engineer: How to Know If You Need One and How to Get the Role Right

Founders and operators who’ve successfully built forward deployed engineering teams share the nuances that make this idiosyncratic role work, along with advice for hiring your own team.

31 mins

So You Want to Hire a Forward Deployed Engineer: How to Know If You Need One and How to Get the Role Right

First Round Staff

Why 90% of CROs will fall behind in the next 2 years | Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta)

Stevie Case is the CRO of Vanta, the trust management platform serving everyone from founders to Fortune 100 CISOs. A former pro-video gamer who stumbled into sales through a mentor's bet, Stevie has built one of the most unconventional paths to the C-suite in tech.

1 hrs 8 mins

Why 90% of CROs will fall behind in the next 2 years | Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta)

First Round Staff

Figma is not the source of truth | Ryan Lucas (VP of Design, Rippling)

In the second Executive Function episode, Brett sits down with Ryan Lucas, VP of Design at Rippling. Before Rippling, Ryan led design at Retool and co-founded multiple startups, bringing a rare founder's perspective to design leadership. A trained industrial designer, Ryan traces the roots of modern software desig

1 hrs 19 mins

Figma is not the source of truth | Ryan Lucas (VP of Design, Rippling)

First Round Staff

Executive Function: Building systems that can make decisions without you | Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel)

In the first Executive Function episode, Brett sits down with Jeanne De Witt Grosser, Chief Operating Officer at Vercel. Before Vercel, Jeanne spent nearly a decade at Stripe, where she built and scaled global revenue teams and led product partnerships.

3 mins

Executive Function: Building systems that can make decisions without you | Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel)

First Round Staff

Applied Intuition’s Path to Product-Market Fit — The $15B Founder’s Formula for a Winning Company

Co-founder and CEO Qasar Younis lays out the personal and business moves he's made to build a company only he could start.

18 mins

Applied Intuition’s Path to Product-Market Fit — The $15B Founder’s Formula for a Winning Company

First Round Staff

Gusto’s Path to Product-Market Fit — How Listening to Customers Built a $9.6B Company

Cold-calling from a walk-in closet taught Tomer London how to recognize what PMF really feels like.

19 mins

Gusto’s Path to Product-Market Fit — How Listening to Customers Built a $9.6B Company

First Round Staff

Canva’s Path to Product-Market Fit: How a Two-Hour Founder Date Led To a $42B Design Platform

Cameron Adams goes deep on finding early evangelists, the unconventional tactics that led to massive growth, and more.

23 mins

Canva’s Path to Product-Market Fit: How a Two-Hour Founder Date Led To a $42B Design Platform

First Round Staff

The 30 Best Pieces of Company Building Advice We Heard in 2025

A roundup of the standout startup wisdom we collected last year.

53 mins

The 30 Best Pieces of Company Building Advice We Heard in 2025

First Round Staff

The Merger Playbook: Crossbeam’s CEO Breaks Down Every Detail of the Deal That Worked

A founder's firsthand account of how he merged with a competitor to materially change the trajectory of his company.

35 mins

The Merger Playbook: Crossbeam’s CEO Breaks Down Every Detail of the Deal That Worked

First Round Staff

What’s in a Name? A Lot, Actually. Here’s How to Pick the Right One For Your Company

A playbook for picking a name that actually fits your company (and all the logistics that come with naming you may not be thinking about).

38 mins

What’s in a Name? A Lot, Actually. Here’s How to Pick the Right One For Your Company

First Round Staff

The Other PMF: Wes Kao’s Framework for Founders Who Want to Communicate — and Lead — Better

Tactical advice for founders on mastering “personality-message fit": leaning into your natural communication style.

17 mins

The Other PMF: Wes Kao’s Framework for Founders Who Want to Communicate — and Lead — Better

First Round Staff

Sentry's Path to Product-Market Fit — A High School Dropout Turned an Open-Source Project into a $3B Company

From Burger King shifts to a billion-dollar business, Sentry co-founder and CPO David Cramer shares his lessons for early stage founders on finding product-market fit.

23 mins

Sentry's Path to Product-Market Fit — A High School Dropout Turned an Open-Source Project into a $3B Company

First Round Staff

When Should You Stop Clinging to Product and Hire Your First PM? Advice From a Founder and CPO

Saumil Mehta outlines a framework for early-stage founders on timing the first product manager hire.

21 mins

When Should You Stop Clinging to Product and Hire Your First PM? Advice From a Founder and CPO

First Round Staff

Mercury’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Do the Hard Part First

Serial founder Immad Akhund shares what he's learned about finding product-market fit from his fourth act, Mercury.

21 mins

Mercury’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Do the Hard Part First

First Round Staff

What Early Stage Founders Should Know About Comp: The Rules To Break (And A Few You Should Actually Follow)

There’s no shortage of advice on how to structure compensation. Here’s how to know which of it applies to you — with insights from Clay, Google and Instacart.

23 mins

What Early Stage Founders Should Know About Comp: The Rules To Break (And A Few You Should Actually Follow)

First Round Staff

Renew Your Co-Founder Vows — and Other Tactics for Strengthening the Most Important Relationship in Your Startup

Executive coach and interpersonal dynamics expert Rachel Lockett shares five practices to strengthen the most important relationship in your startup.

20 mins

Renew Your Co-Founder Vows — and Other Tactics for Strengthening the Most Important Relationship in Your Startup

First Round Staff

Go Deep to Build Fast: A Research Thinking Toolkit to Speed Up the Discovery Phase

UX research expert Jeanette Mellinger shares a toolkit for deeper discovery of your customers, your team and yourself.

32 mins

Go Deep to Build Fast: A Research Thinking Toolkit to Speed Up the Discovery Phase

Alexander Hall

Technical Debt

Technical debt is the implied cost of additional work created when a team prioritizes faster delivery over the most achievable or maintainable solution.

9 mins

Alexander Hall

Cash Runway

Cash runway, sometimes called financial runway, is the amount of time a startup can continue operating before running out of money. It measures how long a company’s cash can support operations given its current spending rate and available resources.

5 mins

Alexander Hall

ARPU

ARPU, or average revenue per user, measures how much revenue a company generates from each customer over a specific period. It’s one of the clearest indicators of how effectively a business is monetizing its user base.

4 mins

Alexander Hall

Break-Even Point

The break-even point (BEP) is when a company’s total revenue exactly equals its total costs. It’s the moment when sales cover both fixed expenses (like rent and salaries) and variable costs (like raw materials and shipping).

7 mins

Alexander Hall

Growth Hacking

Growth hacking is the multidisciplinary practice of identifying and improving key business metrics quickly and meaningfully.

8 mins

First Round Staff

The Hard Way Pays Off: Inside Sierra’s Design Partner Strategy

Instead of chasing low-friction pilots, Sierra asked design partners to pay, commit time and co-build — converting 100% of these partners into customers.

19 mins

The Hard Way Pays Off: Inside Sierra’s Design Partner Strategy

Alexander Hall

Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

Net Revenue Retention (NRR) measures how much recurring revenue you retain and expand from existing customers over a set period, usually a year.

6 mins

Alexander Hall

K-factor

K-Factor (also called the virality coefficient) measures how many new users each existing user or customer brings in over a defined time period.

5 mins

Alexander Hall

ARR

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) is the amount of predictable subscription revenue a company expects to generate in a year.

6 mins

Alexander Hall

Scalability

Scalability is how a business, product, process or system grows under increased demand while maintaining performance.

6 mins

Alexander Hall

Stealth Mode

A stealth mode startup is a company that deliberately avoids public visibility while developing its product and operations.

8 mins

First Round Staff

Is Your Startup Idea Any Good? Borrow These Validation Tactics from the Founders of Linear, Mercury and More

Founders share the unconventional ways they found conviction in their startup ideas.

23 mins

Is Your Startup Idea Any Good? Borrow These Validation Tactics from the Founders of Linear, Mercury and More

First Round Staff

How to Launch Your Startup Out of Stealth, from Figma's First Marketer

Claire Butler joined Figma six months before its public launch and helped bring the design product out into the world. Here, she defangs the launch process, outlining all the steps you need to take to get ready now.

17 mins

How to Launch Your Startup Out of Stealth, from Figma's First Marketer

First Round Staff

To Learn a New Market, Start by Building Your Product — Tactics From a Twitter PM Turned Healthcare Founder

Color co-founder and CEO Othman Laraki built a billion-dollar company in an industry he had zero professional experience in. Here, he shares four product-building tactics that helped him learn the healthcare industry.

26 mins

To Learn a New Market, Start by Building Your Product — Tactics From a Twitter PM Turned Healthcare Founder

First Round Staff

Don’t Ship Your Pitch Deck to Your Website. Here’s How to Translate Your Story for Customers

Your customers don’t want to read your pitch deck. Marketing expert Emily Kramer explains how to turn your investor talking points into your marketing story.

16 mins

Don’t Ship Your Pitch Deck to Your Website. Here’s How to Translate Your Story for Customers

First Round Staff

The Story Behind Owner’s Pivots to a Billion-Dollar Business

Owner co-founder and CEO Adam Guild shares his unique entrepreneurial journey, featuring a six-figure Minecraft server, his mom's failing dog grooming business and a 180-degree pandemic pivot.

22 mins

The Story Behind Owner’s Pivots to a Billion-Dollar Business

First Round Staff

Linear’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Quality and Craft > Speed and Scale

Linear CEO and co-founder Karri Saarinen unpacks the $1.25B company's slow and deliberate path to product-market fit.

19 mins

Linear’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Quality and Craft > Speed and Scale

First Round Staff

The Founder’s Guide to Building a V1 of Customer Success

A CS leader who has built the function from the ground up shares where founders should start — from how to hire to the most important metrics to track.

28 mins

The Founder’s Guide to Building a V1 of Customer Success

Meka Asonye

0-$5M: How to Go From Random Wins to Repeatable Revenue

When every deal closes differently, how do you build repeatability? First Round Partner Meka Asonye shares proven tactics from founders and revenue leaders who've solved this exact puzzle.

19 mins

0-$5M: How to Go From Random Wins to Repeatable Revenue

First Round Staff

Is All Micromanagement Bad? Here's How the Best Startup Leaders Balance Details and Delegation

Founders and execs from Apple, Rippling, Carta and more share their strategies for altitude shifting as a manager.

28 mins

Is All Micromanagement Bad? Here's How the Best Startup Leaders Balance Details and Delegation

First Round Staff

Should You “Rent” an Exec for Your Startup? A Fractional COO Weighs In

A veteran strategy and ops leader turned fractional COO walks us through why, when and how early-stage founders can tap fractional execs to learn and grow faster.

27 mins

Should You “Rent” an Exec for Your Startup? A Fractional COO Weighs In

First Round Staff

The Art of Evals: How Figma Put People at the Center of Its AI Product

Building, testing and validating with human craft and creativity.

22 mins

The Art of Evals: How Figma Put People at the Center of Its AI Product

First Round Staff

How to Build for a Market That Doesn’t Exist Yet — Braze’s Path to Product-Market Fit

The Braze founding team shares all the early moves they made to lay the path to IPO.

22 mins

How to Build for a Market That Doesn’t Exist Yet — Braze’s Path to Product-Market Fit

Meka Asonye

0-$5M: How to Identify Your ICP — Lessons from Vanta, Clay, Retool

How do you spot the wrong customer before they burn your roadmap? First Round Partner Meka Asonye digs into how now-massively successful startups cracked the code.

23 mins

0-$5M: How to Identify Your ICP — Lessons from Vanta, Clay, Retool

First Round Staff

Thinking About Taking the Founder Leap? Here’s How to Prep for the Emotional Gauntlet

How to start building your emotional toolkit for the founder journey ahead, with advice from psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt.

19 mins

Thinking About Taking the Founder Leap? Here’s How to Prep for the Emotional Gauntlet

First Round Staff

The Unsung Ingredient in Stripe, Square and Linear’s Success: Taste

Tactical advice for weaving craft into your product and operationalizing taste.

25 mins

The Unsung Ingredient in Stripe, Square and Linear’s Success: Taste

First Round Staff

Mastering the Human Side of Engineering: Lessons from Apple, Palantir and Slack

Apple engineering leader Michael Lopp gives tactical advice for managers on how to empower individual engineers — and become better leaders themselves.

20 mins

Mastering the Human Side of Engineering: Lessons from Apple, Palantir and Slack

First Round Staff

From Weekend Project to Fortune 10 Adoption — Reducto's Path to Product-Market Fit

Adit Abraham, co-founder and CEO of Reducto, shares how he closed millions in ARR and a Fortune 10 customer with no sales hires.

31 mins

From Weekend Project to Fortune 10 Adoption — Reducto's Path to Product-Market Fit

First Round Staff

Obsessing Over Onboarding for 10+ Years — The Architect of Superhuman's Onboarding Shares His Playbook

Superhuman became known for its unique approach to onboarding: a highly-personalized, white-glove, human-led experience. Superhuman's Gaurav Vohra, startup advisor and growth leader, gives us a detailed look at how he built and scaled the program.

44 mins

Obsessing Over Onboarding for 10+ Years — The Architect of Superhuman's Onboarding Shares His Playbook

First Round Staff

How dbt Labs Built a $4.2B Software Business out of a Two-Person Consultancy

Tristan Handy, CEO and co-founder of dbt Labs, shares the unorthodox moves he made to transform a Philly-based consultancy into a billion-dollar SaaS powerhouse.

24 mins

How dbt Labs Built a $4.2B Software Business out of a Two-Person Consultancy

First Round Staff

You’re Not Ready for a Head of Growth: Run This Founder-Led Growth Playbook Instead

Founders are responsible for figuring out how their business is going to grow. Use these tactics — specifically designed for founders — to uncover your most impactful growth levers.

35 mins

You’re Not Ready for a Head of Growth: Run This Founder-Led Growth Playbook Instead

First Round Staff

How to Intentionally Design Your Org, From Square’s Former CEO

Former Square CEO, AWS's first GM and 12-year Microsoft veteran, Alyssa Henry, walks us through the two crucial considerations for organizational design — your business and your people — and how to connect them.

20 mins

How to Intentionally Design Your Org, From Square’s Former CEO

First Round Staff

Building a Deep Tech Company? Most Startup Advice Doesn’t Apply — Read This Instead

Learn from Loyal founder Celine Halioua’s rigorous approach to milestone-based planning, fundraising and multi-product strategy for deep tech companies.

28 mins

Building a Deep Tech Company? Most Startup Advice Doesn’t Apply — Read This Instead

First Round Staff

How I Spent 17,784 Hours in 5 Years as a Startup Founder

Sam Corcos, co-founder & CEO of Levels, shares a detailed look into exactly how he spent 5 years building the company, with reflections on what changed in the transition from very early-stage to scale up.

26 mins

How I Spent 17,784 Hours in 5 Years as a Startup Founder

First Round Staff

The Pivot to Product-Market Fit: How Plaid, Clay, Lattice & Other Startups Broke Out

For many startups, the secret to finding product-market fit lies in the pivot. Here’s how these founders knew it was time to change directions.

28 mins

The Pivot to Product-Market Fit: How Plaid, Clay, Lattice & Other Startups Broke Out

First Round Staff

0-$5M: When, Who, and How to Make Your First Sales Hire

Expert advice from Dropbox, Figma and Stripe on timing your first sales hire, finding the right candidate profile and creating effective onboarding to successfully transition from founder-led sales to a scalable revenue team.

42 mins

0-$5M: When, Who, and How to Make Your First Sales Hire

First Round Staff

Lessons in Product Scaling and Storytelling from Figma’s CPO

Figma CPO Yuhki Yamashita offers up his playbook for the gnarly phase of product building that arrives after a startup clinches product-market fit — and sets its sights on the next phase of growth.

18 mins

Lessons in Product Scaling and Storytelling from Figma’s CPO

First Round Staff

The Rotation Program That Keeps This Startup’s Engineers Learning — and Not Leaving

Checkr VP of Engineering Krista Moroder opens up about the rotation program that’s helped keep her org’s non-regrettable attrition at near-zero.

23 mins

The Rotation Program That Keeps This Startup’s Engineers Learning — and Not Leaving

First Round Staff

0-$5M: How to Nail Founder-Led Sales

First Round partner Meka Asonye sits down with founders and first sales hires to unpack 6 specific tactics for learning to embrace founder-led sales instead of avoiding it. This is the first installment in our “0-$5M” series.

33 mins

First Round Staff

EvolutionIQ Just Got Acquired for $730M — Here's Their Playbook For Building an Enduring AI Business

We sat down with the founding team for the inside story of one of the first major vertical AI exits.

1 hrs 6 mins

EvolutionIQ Just Got Acquired for $730M — Here's Their Playbook For Building an Enduring AI Business

First Round Staff

This 90-Day Plan Turns Engineering Leaders Back into Frontline Developers

David Loftesness has deftly cycled between management and IC roles throughout his career. Here, he lays out a plan to help engineering leaders make a smooth transition back into the technical weeds.

34 mins

This 90-Day Plan Turns Engineering Leaders Back into Frontline Developers

First Round Staff

The GTM Inflection Points That Powered Clay to a $1B+ Valuation

How do you create a go-to-market machine that’s able to turbocharge (and then sustain) revenue growth? Clay co-founder Varun Anand shares the biggest lessons from the company's success, with growth advice for both product-led and sales-led startups.

33 mins

The GTM Inflection Points That Powered Clay to a $1B+ Valuation

First Round Staff

How to Make Your Product Idea Go Viral Inside Your Company: Lessons from Figma Slides

How Figma Slides founding PM Mihika Kapoor transformed a hackathon project into one of Figma's most anticipated launches.

24 mins

How to Make Your Product Idea Go Viral Inside Your Company: Lessons from Figma Slides

First Round Staff

The 30 Best Pieces of Company Building Advice We Heard in 2024

For the 12th year in a row, we rounded up 30 timeless company-building insights we published from the year before.

53 mins

The 30 Best Pieces of Company Building Advice We Heard in 2024

First Round Staff

Everything in Business is About Fighting Entropy — Here’s How Rippling Does It

Matt MacInnis, COO of Rippling, shares why most companies slow down as they scale, and his advice for how startup founders and executives can prevent it.

35 mins

Everything in Business is About Fighting Entropy — Here’s How Rippling Does It

First Round Staff

25 Hard Questions Every Founder Should Ask Themselves

Startup founders share their go-to questions for taking a pulse check on everything from product strategy to co-founder relationships to their own decision making.

26 mins

25 Hard Questions Every Founder Should Ask Themselves

First Round Staff

A 3X Founder's Guide to Intellectual Honesty

Crossbeam CEO and co-founder Bob Moore shares his tools for quashing biases in pursuit of the truth at every stage of company building.

24 mins

A 3X Founder's Guide to Intellectual Honesty

First Round Staff

How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product Market Fit

Superhuman founder and CEO Rahul Vohra walks us through the framework his startup used to make product/market fit more actionable, detailing the survey and four-step process that were key to measuring and optimizing it.

28 mins

How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product Market Fit

First Round Staff

‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups

Molly Graham helped forge a work culture at Facebook that's withstood huge amounts of growth. Today, she's something of a rapid scaling expert. Here's the key to doing it right, she says.

23 mins

‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups

First Round Staff

Radical Candor — The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss

Kim Scott cut her teeth as a manager at Apple and Google, and now helps create great leaders as an author and coach for companies like Twitter. Here's the secret that's made all the difference for her.

16 mins

Radical Candor — The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss

First Round Staff

40 Favorite Interview Questions from Some of the Sharpest Folks We Know

Given the high-stakes nature of every hire, interviewing chops are always in need of sharpening. We’ve spent the past few months reaching out to some of the most thoughtful company builders in our network to pose a simple question: What’s your favorite interview question to ask and why? Here are the

47 mins

40 Favorite Interview Questions from Some of the Sharpest Folks We Know

First Round Staff

The Secret to a Great Planning Process — Lessons from Airbnb and Eventbrite

Poor planning can spell disaster for companies and sow distrust among teams. Drawing from their careers at Eventbrite and Airbnb, Lenny Rachitsky and Nels Gilbreth break down their "W Framework" to help startup leaders develop plans, earn alignment and execute effective planning cycles every time.

29 mins

The Secret to a Great Planning Process — Lessons from Airbnb and Eventbrite

First Round Staff

The Founder Dating Playbook – Here’s the Process I Used to Find My Co-Founder

Gloria Lin opens up about her pre-founder journey, from how to find a co-founder and early conversations, to the set of 50 questions she prototyped to team up on a startup idea.

39 mins

The Founder Dating Playbook – Here’s the Process I Used to Find My Co-Founder

First Round Staff

How to Become Insanely Well-Connected

Chris Fralic is a world-class super-connector. Here's how the long-time First Round Partner has methodically built bonds spanning years and careers.

23 mins

First Round Staff

Speed as a Habit

All things being equal, speed will determine whether your company succeeds or not. Here's how to make it core to your culture.

17 mins

First Round Staff

The 25 Micro-Habits of High-Impact Managers

Sharp folks from across the First Round community share the small habits that great managers do, including delivering feedback with care, opening up about failure, and sending praise up the chain.

27 mins

The 25 Micro-Habits of High-Impact Managers

First Round Staff

The Power of Performance Reviews: Use This System to Become a Better Manager

Performance reviews are key to accelerating your report's career. A former Airbnb Product Lead shares the conversation template that he's used to build high-performing teams and motivate growth all year long.

31 mins

The Power of Performance Reviews: Use This System to Become a Better Manager

First Round Staff

From 0 to $1B - Slack's Founder Shares Their Epic Launch Strategy

“HELL YEAH WE'RE USING @SlackHQ AT WORK I. LOVE. SLACK.”

22 mins

From 0 to $1B - Slack's Founder Shares Their Epic Launch Strategy

First Round Staff

How Design Thinking Transformed Airbnb from a Failing Startup to a Billion Dollar Business

Airbnb Co-founder Joe Gebbia talks about the true meaning of being scrappy and being willing to do things that don't scale.

8 mins

How Design Thinking Transformed Airbnb from a Failing Startup to a Billion Dollar Business

First Round Review

Tactical advice to change your company and your career