First Round Capital
B2B Marketing Director
First Round Capital, San Francisco, California, United States, 94199
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. About First Round's Founder Success Team
At First Round, we invest in founders who possess not just strengths, but areas of true genius, whether it's technical skill, product judgement, industry expertise, or a deep understanding of their customer's pain point. But on the other side of every spike in talent are a few areas that are still underdeveloped, parts of the business where a founder doesn't have the skills and expertise - yet.
Simply put, there are many gaps that have yet to be closed when you're only a 3-person startup. On the path to building a company of consequence, the very best founders are able to level up, both in terms of their own capabilities (by developing new muscles) and in the team around the table (by bringing in complementary talent).
That's where our Founder Success team comes in, during the pivotal early years of company building. We fill in where we can until there's genius up and down the org chart, closing gaps around existing strengths while helping in the key growth areas on the transition from founder to founder & CEO. This might involve teaching a technical founder how to sell and take their product to market, or guiding them through making their first key hires.
About the Marketing Director Role
We believe that as a founding team works toward forging product-market fit, the most critical metric is their rate of learning. One of the best ways to accelerate that learning is by engaging with as many potential customers as possible - and that's exactly what this role is designed to support.
We refer to these early, research and sales oriented customer interactions as "at-bats," and the purpose of this role is to create and execute programs that give founders as many of these "at-bats" as possible. By doing so, founders will build their early pipeline, accelerate their learning, and ultimately drive their first few million in revenue. This might involve helping founders launch their first LinkedIn paid campaigns, teaching them how to cultivate a developer community, or organizing a marquee dinner event at their biggest conference of the year.
While the specific services and programs will vary, the core goals remain the same: (1) Generate qualified pipeline for founders, and (2) Equip founders with the tools and know-how to generate pipeline on their own.
Your core as Marketing Director will include: Build the Pipeline Gen Offering Strategy.
We have a number of existing programs focused on generating pipeline with and for founders. You'll audit our current offerings, make changes as you see fit and craft new programs and services to deliver a remarkable experience to founders that meaningfully impacts their ability to get to their first few million in ARR and beyond. You'll know your strategy is successful if founders rave about our growth programs and if we generate and/or enable more at bats for founders quarter over quarter. Execute Pipeline Gen Programs.
You'll act as a close partner to the founders you support, deeply understanding their ICP, personas and demand generation challenges. You'll develop prescriptive growth playbooks / experiments for founders and collaborate with internal stakeholders, experts in residence and other agencies to execute these programs with founders. You'll be hands-on across all channels doing things like building LinkedIn campaigns, writing outreach messaging, planning and hosting events for founders' prospects, just to name a few. And you'll support a handful of founders at any given time. Teach & Train Founders.
We take the "I do, we do, you do" approach with our founder services. You'll help our founders make progress with hands on execution support and also teach founders how to fish by training them on key aspects of growth program execution. You'll create templates, guides, Loom videos etc. to help founders do it on their own once your engagements are over. Manage Growth Team Member(s), Vendors and Partners . You'll build and manage relationships with external vendors and other freelancers who support our DG programs, including negotiating great discounts and incentives for our founders. You'll also manage our Go-to-Market Experts In Residence and our GTM Manager who focuses on cold and warm sales outreach on behalf of our Founders. You could be a great Marketing Director at First Round if: You have a minimum of 8 years of experience supporting early stage ( You've done the zero to one thing several times, working super closely with founders on early demand gen strategies across industries, buyer personas, ACVs and GTM motions.
You spike in content, community, organic social and/or outbound You're prescriptive . You understand demand gen isn't a one-size-fits-all function. You've seen enough variety in your career to be able to deeply digest a company's ICP/persona/motion and recommend demand tactics that deliver results. In essence, you know how to be prescriptive (not just copy an old playbook). You're experimental . You love to create hypotheses and quickly test their validity. You're amazing at tracking what you're doing and understanding what's working / not and iterating along the way. You know how to analyze google analytics, LinkedIn ad performance, cold outreach campaign metrics and all the other marketing tactics in between. You're scrappy and fast . You always manage to just figure stuff out, even with limited support or budget. You're extremely hands on and excited to dig in with founders. And nothing is too small for you to do. You love the idea of taking a problem or goal and coming up with new ways to tackle that problem or achieve that goal. You embody extreme ownership . You own your function through and through. No one has to tell you the next step to take or the next email to write. You're extremely autonomous and are a driver, pushing things forward and proactively unblocking barriers on the way to the goal. You are obsessed with details and process.
You'll likely be supporting a handful of companies at one time. This requires an exceptional level of organization and detail orientation. This looks like you having detailed notes on every engagement, using Notion like a pro, having amazing CRM hygiene. You remember the little things and never let a ball drop. Please note this role is based in San Francisco or New York City and requires at least 3 days per week in-office. 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.
Going above and beyond for our founders is what we do. We strive to be a founder's most valuable investor. That's why we don't pull term sheets, and we're always in for their second round. We respond to their emails in hours, not days. We build candidate pipelines, unprompted. We arrange meal deliveries when they become a new parent. Simply put, we go above and beyond to earn that right to be their first call every time there's a bump in the road. Give your unvarnished opinions and unwavering support.
We strive to be kind, not nice. 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. Treat the little things like big things.
Everything can always be made better. 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. Make speed a habit.
Whatever you're building, remember that now is better than two weeks from now. We're fans of starting small and iterating quickly. No matter what we're launching, you'll likely hear this question in a meeting: "How soon can we get something out there?" Invent and wander.
Never stop experimenting. The best ideas are born out of experimentation. Our flagship programs have always come from our penchant for going out on a limb and approaching problems with a different perspective. Build wider doorways and longer tables . We're in the business of backing people and betting on their ideas - no matter where they come from. While talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is not. First Round is dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workspace and we encourage people from underrepresented groups to apply!
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. About First Round's Founder Success Team
At First Round, we invest in founders who possess not just strengths, but areas of true genius, whether it's technical skill, product judgement, industry expertise, or a deep understanding of their customer's pain point. But on the other side of every spike in talent are a few areas that are still underdeveloped, parts of the business where a founder doesn't have the skills and expertise - yet.
Simply put, there are many gaps that have yet to be closed when you're only a 3-person startup. On the path to building a company of consequence, the very best founders are able to level up, both in terms of their own capabilities (by developing new muscles) and in the team around the table (by bringing in complementary talent).
That's where our Founder Success team comes in, during the pivotal early years of company building. We fill in where we can until there's genius up and down the org chart, closing gaps around existing strengths while helping in the key growth areas on the transition from founder to founder & CEO. This might involve teaching a technical founder how to sell and take their product to market, or guiding them through making their first key hires.
About the Marketing Director Role
We believe that as a founding team works toward forging product-market fit, the most critical metric is their rate of learning. One of the best ways to accelerate that learning is by engaging with as many potential customers as possible - and that's exactly what this role is designed to support.
We refer to these early, research and sales oriented customer interactions as "at-bats," and the purpose of this role is to create and execute programs that give founders as many of these "at-bats" as possible. By doing so, founders will build their early pipeline, accelerate their learning, and ultimately drive their first few million in revenue. This might involve helping founders launch their first LinkedIn paid campaigns, teaching them how to cultivate a developer community, or organizing a marquee dinner event at their biggest conference of the year.
While the specific services and programs will vary, the core goals remain the same: (1) Generate qualified pipeline for founders, and (2) Equip founders with the tools and know-how to generate pipeline on their own.
Your core as Marketing Director will include: Build the Pipeline Gen Offering Strategy.
We have a number of existing programs focused on generating pipeline with and for founders. You'll audit our current offerings, make changes as you see fit and craft new programs and services to deliver a remarkable experience to founders that meaningfully impacts their ability to get to their first few million in ARR and beyond. You'll know your strategy is successful if founders rave about our growth programs and if we generate and/or enable more at bats for founders quarter over quarter. Execute Pipeline Gen Programs.
You'll act as a close partner to the founders you support, deeply understanding their ICP, personas and demand generation challenges. You'll develop prescriptive growth playbooks / experiments for founders and collaborate with internal stakeholders, experts in residence and other agencies to execute these programs with founders. You'll be hands-on across all channels doing things like building LinkedIn campaigns, writing outreach messaging, planning and hosting events for founders' prospects, just to name a few. And you'll support a handful of founders at any given time. Teach & Train Founders.
We take the "I do, we do, you do" approach with our founder services. You'll help our founders make progress with hands on execution support and also teach founders how to fish by training them on key aspects of growth program execution. You'll create templates, guides, Loom videos etc. to help founders do it on their own once your engagements are over. Manage Growth Team Member(s), Vendors and Partners . You'll build and manage relationships with external vendors and other freelancers who support our DG programs, including negotiating great discounts and incentives for our founders. You'll also manage our Go-to-Market Experts In Residence and our GTM Manager who focuses on cold and warm sales outreach on behalf of our Founders. You could be a great Marketing Director at First Round if: You have a minimum of 8 years of experience supporting early stage ( You've done the zero to one thing several times, working super closely with founders on early demand gen strategies across industries, buyer personas, ACVs and GTM motions.
You spike in content, community, organic social and/or outbound You're prescriptive . You understand demand gen isn't a one-size-fits-all function. You've seen enough variety in your career to be able to deeply digest a company's ICP/persona/motion and recommend demand tactics that deliver results. In essence, you know how to be prescriptive (not just copy an old playbook). You're experimental . You love to create hypotheses and quickly test their validity. You're amazing at tracking what you're doing and understanding what's working / not and iterating along the way. You know how to analyze google analytics, LinkedIn ad performance, cold outreach campaign metrics and all the other marketing tactics in between. You're scrappy and fast . You always manage to just figure stuff out, even with limited support or budget. You're extremely hands on and excited to dig in with founders. And nothing is too small for you to do. You love the idea of taking a problem or goal and coming up with new ways to tackle that problem or achieve that goal. You embody extreme ownership . You own your function through and through. No one has to tell you the next step to take or the next email to write. You're extremely autonomous and are a driver, pushing things forward and proactively unblocking barriers on the way to the goal. You are obsessed with details and process.
You'll likely be supporting a handful of companies at one time. This requires an exceptional level of organization and detail orientation. This looks like you having detailed notes on every engagement, using Notion like a pro, having amazing CRM hygiene. You remember the little things and never let a ball drop. Please note this role is based in San Francisco or New York City and requires at least 3 days per week in-office. 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.
Going above and beyond for our founders is what we do. We strive to be a founder's most valuable investor. That's why we don't pull term sheets, and we're always in for their second round. We respond to their emails in hours, not days. We build candidate pipelines, unprompted. We arrange meal deliveries when they become a new parent. Simply put, we go above and beyond to earn that right to be their first call every time there's a bump in the road. Give your unvarnished opinions and unwavering support.
We strive to be kind, not nice. 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. Treat the little things like big things.
Everything can always be made better. 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. Make speed a habit.
Whatever you're building, remember that now is better than two weeks from now. We're fans of starting small and iterating quickly. No matter what we're launching, you'll likely hear this question in a meeting: "How soon can we get something out there?" Invent and wander.
Never stop experimenting. The best ideas are born out of experimentation. Our flagship programs have always come from our penchant for going out on a limb and approaching problems with a different perspective. Build wider doorways and longer tables . We're in the business of backing people and betting on their ideas - no matter where they come from. While talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is not. First Round is dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workspace and we encourage people from underrepresented groups to apply!