When Josh Kopelman and I first spoke about me joining First Round Capital, we talked a lot about alignment of interests—what First Round Capital was interested in with regards to investing in New York City, and also what my interests were with respect to my own career.  Given that our discussions had only started about a week and a half before my last fulltime day at my startup, I hadn’t really had a lot of time to think about what my next move was going to be.  It didn’t really make sense for either of us to commit to a big four year engagement when I couldn’t say for sure what my goals were.  Josh suggested that I help First Round firm up their footprint in NYC over the next year while I figure it out. 

So, that being said, what am I actually doing with my time?  The Entrepreneur-in-Residence title is a bit of a misnomer.  Traditionally, EIRs are out looking for the next thing to build, and are only peripherally out looking to help on dealflow.  I’ve been quite the opposite.  It took me 7 years to decide I wanted to build something in the career guidance space—I highly doubt I’ll gain enough passion for a new idea anytime soon, so I wouldn’t look for me to start a new company. 

I’m spending about a third of my time looking at deals, another third meeting with folks that see a number of startups to boost our NYC dealflow, like angels, lawyers, etc., and then a third of my time on what I’m calling “community support”—helping to make NYC a better place to build a startup.  A rising tide lifts all ships, so that not only helps the community, but helps First Round, other NYC investors, other local startups, people looking to build tech and digital media careers here—the whole ecosystem. 

Here’s a little more detail on each of those endeavors:

Deals

One thing I realized is that many people in NYC don’t actually realize what First Round does and how it differs from a typical venture capital fund.  Actually, you can think of us more like an angel investor more than anything—one that has the ability to follow on.  We’re one of the few places in NYC, other than from an individual angel, where you can get a check of $100k.  We’re more than happy to lead a $500k angel round by being half of it, and we don’t need to get 20% of the company upfront.  One way I measure my own dealflow is on how many people have a finished Powerpoint deck.  If they do, I’m seeing them much later than I want to.  I want to meet people when they just started hacking or they’re vetting the idea—not when they’re shopping it around to every investor.  I think I can be pretty helpful, having just gone through raising angel capital for my own startup, in helping people think about their financing plans, product viability, business models, etc. 

So if you’re raising an angel round in New York City, thinking about it, or you’re in an angel round, please do make sure you come talk to me.  (charlie@firstround.com) The best thing we can do for you is to be a really value added investor around the table, and the worst thing we can do is just give you a quick no—or tell you what’s missing. 

My role at First Round from a deal perspective is to uncover as many interesting startups as possible, but also as early as possible, and help vet them for the team.  We have a very team focused approach to deals and all of the partners, with the support of the rest of the team, get involved in decision making. I remarked to another VC the other day that the idea of “Partner X’s deal” seemed so foreign to the way things get done at First Round.  (It’s actually quite the well oiled decision making machine, actually…  you should see our meetings.  I was impressed when I first saw it.)

I think a lot of local entrepreneurs feel like they’re too early to talk to us until they’re ready to raise a million bucks.  Please do come see us much earlier than that—even without a deck.  I know one entrepreneur in particular that I’m helping write her deck so she’d be better at pitching us. 

Other Players in the Ecosystem

You’re a lawyer, a school running an incubator program, a designer who has worked with startups—let’s talk.  First off, I have companies that might be able to use your services.  Second, let’s chat about the NYC market in general and what we can mutually do to help make NYC a better place to build a company.  Third, undoubtedly you’re seeing a lot of companies that might be thinking about financing.  Send them my way.  Don’t worry about screening them.  That’s my job.  Screening is what I get paid to do. 

Community Support

Like I said before, the better that New York City is at supporting startups, the better it will be for First Round and for everyone else in the community.  I’m very dedicated to making that happen, and the team at First Round is also committed to participating in that effort.  I want to run a lot more events for nextNY and for First Round in New York City that are relevant, educational, and productive.  Sure, I’ll probably get roped into running another Shake Shack event, but what I really want to do is more events like we did last night at TechSales—where 100 professionals, like sales people, developers, product managers, etc.,  get together in a room on a focused topic and have a great discussion. 

That’s the kind of thing that has brought the community together over the last five years.  Give me a room for 75 people and I’ll push the community forward—or rather set the stage for the community to push itself forward like it’s been doing.  That’s the kind of thing that I think is hard for folks in government, for example, to understand.  When they do surveys and hearings about what the community needs, I tell them the community needs easy access to free event space for 75-100 people and a single person to just run around connecting everyone.  Seems too small, but that’s what innovation is.  It’s a house to house ground war, with conversations taking place just a handful of people at a time.

So if you’re a company with space to host 50, 75, 100+ people, trust me, I’ll fill it with innovative folks from the NY tech community and their ideas, arguments, and accumulated wisdom. 

Does it need to be explicitly branded First Round?  Not really.  We have a great network in New York and I’ll be making sure that network not only mixes with itself, but gets out in front of the community.  So, expect to see a lot of experienced pros from the First Round portfolio on various panels and out at events more often, but don’t expect a lot of in your face banners and schwag. 

This is syndicated from an e-mail list I’ve been sending this out to over the past four weeks to hundreds of people.  If you’d like to receive this on Monday mornings, please sign up here:  http://eepurl.com/e3On

Welcome to Holiday Party Season!

No doubt your inbox is full of places to imbibe with friends, clients, and investors under the guise of holiday merriment.  Just try not to overdue it and stay off your hipster scooter if you've had a few too many.  Here now, we present a list of things to do that won't necessarily lead to yuletide blackouts.

Monday, December 7th

7PM: Boxee Beta Unveiling - If you haven't figured out by now that this is the**EVENT OF THE WEEK** then you need to hangout with cooler friends.  At the event they'll demo the new Beta, launch new applications from partners and start a 4-weeks early-access for users to test the Beta before we release it to the public at CES on Jan 7th.  You know what they say--750 people in Brooklyn can't be wrong.

Music Hall of Williamsburg

66 N 6th St

Brooklyn, NY 11211

RSVP: http://boxeebeta.eventbrite.com

Tuesday, December 8th

6:30PM - 9PM: MatchupCamp II is the reprise of a past successful nextNY event. It is all about startup networking, creating a place for ideas and talent to meet.  MatchupCamp has the sole objective of bringing together people looking to start, expand, or join a startup in New York (and the tri-state area).  If you want to get your hands dirty and build something new, this is the place.

For Your Imagination Studio

22 West 27th ST

RSVP: http://matchupcamp.eventbrite.com/

6pm – 9pm: Launch Party for Hive at 55 – Downtown New York’s newest coworking space.  The Hive at 55 is a workspace for freelancers and small business owners. 

55 Broad Street, 13th FLoor

More Info: http://www.downtownny.com/news?nid=222

RSVP: hiveat55@downtownny.com

Mediaite Launch Party

6:30PM - 8:30PM

Plaza Hotel

RSVP: I wish I knew, because Rachel Sklar is pretty cool, but I didn't get an invite.  Oh well.

Wednesday December 9th

Digital Dumbo: Purple Sangria Digital Festivus

Bringing together the Digital Minds of NYC, Digital Dumbo facilities idea sharing and networking all while drinking purple sangria. This months event is sponsored by Purple Rock Scissors.

Galapagos Art Space

16 Main Street

RSVP: http://digitaldumbo.eventbrite.com/

6PM -8PM: Insider Tips from the Big Apple's Best Tech and Digital Media Sales Professionals - Sales Pros Only!

We've assembled some of the Big Apple's best tech and digital media sales talent for a very interactive discussion that every new and accomplished sales professional in tech should attend.

Deutsch Inc

111 8th Ave

RSVP: http://www.nextNY.org/TechSales

Thursday, December 10th

5PM- 7PM The DEMO New York City Meet-up is one stop on the DEMO Innovation tour where Matt and the DEMO team will travel around the country to connect with the DEMO community in search of  the best innovation to showcase at DEMOspring 2010.

3 Ten Lounge

310 Bowery

RSVP: http://demoinnovationnyc.eventbrite.com/

7PM URDB (http://urdb.org/) Presents: World Record Appreciation Society #10

Following a brief NYC hiatus and two sold-out events on the West Coast, the World Record Appreciation Society is coming back strong with holiday-themed world record blowout extravaganza.

Odd addition to our list?  Perhaps, but I'm showing up purely to see Andrea Rosen set the record for "Fastest Time To Open An Advent Calendar And Eat All The Chocolates In Order".  How awesome is that?

Pianos

158 Ludlow St

RSVP: http://guestlistapp.com/events/6627

Real Time Twitter Booze NYC

If you're building a business around the real time web or just tinkering with a few product ideas, you'll want to get drunk here.  The founders of Stocktwits, fourSquare, Bit.ly, Hootsuite, and Winetwits will be in attendence. 

Swift

34 E 4th Street

RSVP: http://realtimeboozenyc.eventbrite.com/

Friday, December 11th and Saturday, December 12th

Open NY Summit & Codeathon

The Open NY Summit will be the first of many events produced by open government practitioners and volunteers.  Two day conference includes Open NY Co-working, discussions, and a hackathon.  Revolution!

The Open Planning Project

148 Lafayette St

Penthouse (PH)

RSVP: http://opennyforum.org/2009/11/open-ny-summit-09/

Sunday, December 13th

12:45PM: NY Tech Gives Back - Ice Skating is a day for the NY tech community to come together for a good cause through volunteerism and giving. For our inaugural event, we are partnering with CampInteractive, a not-for-profit organization that empowers inner-city youth through the inspiration of the outdoors and the creative power of technology. When asked what event the kids would most like, they chose ice skating. We're making it happen. Your ticket will pay for you + 1 CampInteractive child to go ice skating (+pizza).

RSVP: http://techiesgiveback.eventbrite.com