Your health plan should get better year-round. Not just once a year. Today we're launching @Decent on @ycombinator. We find the best health plan for your company, then keep making it better all year.

Solving the childcare shortage will require more real estate dedicated to child care. Today's Thesis Driven (from @markmunro) explores early childhood education spaces as a real estate investment category. Here's why they're interesting...

Big @firstround news today! We’re launching Product-Market Fit Method (a free intensive 14-week experience for early founders building epic B2B SaaS companies) and publishing the first session on our internal framework for all to read (with benchmarks, Looker's real data, and tactical advice from iconic enterprise founders). Even though finding product-market fit is the single most important thing for a startup, it’s still underexplored and seen as more art than science. We wanted to change that. I’ve personally talked to hundreds of founders about this topic, digging into what they did in the first 6-9 months of company building. (We’ve published dozens of those interviews on The Review in our “Paths to PMF” series.) This video previews some of what we learned — thanks to @christinacaci, @zachperret, @lloydtabb, @jboehmig, & @jaltma for sharing their lessons! In addition to that research, we’ve also drawn from our own 20 years of data and 500+ pre-PMF investments. What emerged was a very consistent set of patterns for sales-led B2B companies — the basis for our new framework and PMF Method’s 8 tactical sessions. In the program, we help early founders discover what customers really want, build the right v1 product, and close their first enterprise sales. We ran a beta version late last year with a tight-knit group of founders (ex Stripe, Plaid, Airbnb, Twitter, Greenhouse, Grammarly) and the feedback was great — my personal favorite was: "I feel like I shaved 12 months off the time it would take us to get to PMF.” Here are a few key dates and details: - The Summer 2024 session of PMF Method runs 5/29 - 8/28. - Application deadline is 11:59 PDT May 7th. - Any early founder working on a new B2B SaaS company is welcome to apply. Bonus points if you’re technical, have a clear product idea but haven’t raised yet and are <12 months into working full time on your idea. - PMF Method is 100% free. It costs you $0 and we own 0% of your company. Like with The First Round Review and Angel Track, our mindset is to openly share knowledge that we’ve put hundreds of hours of work into curating with the broader startup community, and give it away for free. That’s why we’ve also published our framework, so every builder can use this resource, even if they don’t do the program (it’s linked in the next post). Check out the links below for more details. Can’t wait to read applications!

What if you could point at anything in-app and get AI-powered help and actions? We’re building it! And we’re calling it 𝗔𝗜 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁 It uses AI vision, page context, user details, and docs for remarkably relevant assistance Not another support chatbot! AI built for in-app

Excited to officially announce our newest cohort of Angel Track graduates! It’s somehow been 5 years since we first launched the program, and I’m still blown away by the megawatt talent that joins the ranks of our community, now over 400 strong. In our 12th cohort earlier this year, we welcomed exceptionally talented folks, from founders like @instacart’s @max and @alloyautomation’s @saradu to incredible leaders at standout companies like @jennywen of @figma, @jamiecuffe of @retool, @dyett of @openai, @tonydong3 of @rippling, and dozens more. To mark 5 years of Angel Track, we gave our website a revamp, sharing a bunch more details about what we think makes this a one-of-a-kind program, and a sample of the remarkable alumni. We also gave a new coat of paint to Angel Directory, where founders can connect with standout angel investors both in and outside of the Angel Track network.

We've noticed finding a co-founder often appears to be a random process. Typically, co-founder relationships stem from friendships cultivated at school or at previous jobs. However, given how much this dynamic depends on chance, there are a lot of outstanding people who never pair with the right person. For those exceptionally talented and ambitious individuals, finding a compatible partner with equal drive and abilities remains a persistent challenge. To delve deeper into this topic (and possibly help some extraordinary people find a collaborator), we plan to host a series of small dinners in San Francisco. If this subject intrigues you or if you've been looking for a co-founder, we encourage you to sign up below.

We're live on Product Hunt with the first product onboarding platform for developers! We’ll be around all day to answer your questions and we'd love your support, thoughts, and feedback! producthunt.com/posts/dopt

We're thrilled to announce version 2 of @firstround AI Forum. This time it will be all in person in San Francisco. Last fall we announced an experiment with the idea of bringing together a small group of founders at the earliest stages of exploring new companies predicated on the recent advancements in AI. After hundreds of applications, we chose 6 fantastic founders (who came from places ranging from @OpenAI to @Stripe), including first-time builders and repeat founders. After 2 months of tactical group discussions with folks sharing their thorniest problems (and hard-won advice), we walked away even more steadfast believers in the power of community to unlock critical discoveries faster. We also left believing that keeping the group extremely small unlocks a ton of value. With that, we’re thrilled to open up applications for @firstround’s next AI Forum for a new cohort of builders. You're a good fit for this program if you’re exploring opportunities in applied AI/ML (and its enabling infrastructure) — but don’t yet have a fully-defined product out in the market. Over the course of a few months, a small cohort of early founders will meet weekly to share their blockers and seek tactical advice in a safe, off-the-record environment. You’ll also receive 1:1 support from dedicated members of the First Round team. Weekly in-person group sessions (along with other events) will be held in SF, so applicants need to be based in the Bay Area. By intentionally keeping AI Forum small, we're proud to offer this program at no cost to remarkable founders, with no expectation that you'll need to raise capital from First Round if you go on to start a company. The aim is for the relationships folks build across these sessions to be just as valuable as the tactical advice they receive from fellow founders in the room. We’re excited to continue building a space where explorers can learn faster than if they were going about it alone. Apply now (or share with a builder you know): firstround.typeform.com/ai-f…

New on In Depth 🎙️ @benln is Head of Community @NotionHQ , but he also used to be the product’s #1 fan. He shares the story of how he went from product evangelist to Notion employee and opens up his playbook for building a community-led growth engine. review.firstround.com/podcas…

After nearly 3 years of partnering with founders on recruiting, I'm thrilled to share that I've started a new role as the GM of Fast Track, @firstround's mentorship program! Here's why I'm so excited about this program and community: