Associate

About the Role

An Associate role within the investment unit, responsible for driving investments into and maximizing outcomes for exceptional individuals and the companies they build at Entrepreneurs First (EF). This role is expected to be intense, fast-paced, and entrepreneurial, offering an opportunity for significant impact and upside.

Key Responsibilities

• Contribute to the development and execution of a thesis on identifying non-obviously exceptional founder talent, focusing on individuals who are early in their careers.
• Identify particular communities or institutions that are talent-dense ("talent clusters") and potential signals of exceptionalism.
• Support the team in building relationships with key nodes within talent clusters, such as Computer Science Professors or leaders of societies.
• Become a trusted advisor to exceptional talent, guiding them from their initial founder aspirations through company building and seed round closure.
• Work closely with ambitious individuals to unlock their potential, advising on founder decisions, idea development, co-founder selection, customer outreach, and funding.
• Leverage EF’s global network to amplify your work.
• Constantly train your mental model of what exceptional talent looks like through repeated exposure, learning from experienced Talent Investors, and embracing humility to learn from failures and successes.
• Contribute to investment decisions, with a primary focus on the potential of the talent and the subsequent team/idea.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• You are intellectually curious and possess a deep desire to increase your knowledge of the world, often with multiple interests and hobbies.
• You are a discerning judge of others, holding high expectations and balancing optimism with realism when evaluating individuals and their potential.
• You understand and appreciate technology’s potential for impact, particularly through early-stage company creation.
• You are a network builder, enjoying the process of building and immersing yourself within networks of exceptional people, forming meaningful relationships, and making connections.
• You are driven, innately motivated to achieve ambitious goals and find creative solutions.
• Exposure to exceptionally talented people through education, work, or side projects.
• Some exposure to early-stage company building and/or investment.

Qualifications

• You have likely ~0-4 years of experience.
• You have been exposed to exceptionally talented people through your education, work, and/or side projects.
• You have some exposure to early-stage company building and/or investment.