Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital

Josh Kopelman is the co-founder of First Round Capital, a pioneering seed-stage venture capital firm. He's been an active entrepreneur and investor in the Internet industry since it's commercialization. He co-founded Infonautics while still an undergrad in 1996, which went public in 1999. He then co-founded and ran Half.com, a fixed price marketplace connecting buyers and sellers of used books, movies and music products, which he sold to eBay in 2000. In this episode, we discuss Josh's early career as an entrepreneur and all of the lessons learned having started two companies, taking one of them public at a really young age, and then selling Half.com to eBay at the height of the dot com. We discuss his early angel investing practice, including investments in companies like Linkedin and Delicious, and the ultimate decision to start First Round Capital with his partners, raise institutional funds, and build out their unique "platform." As always, a huge thank you to Carta, the title sponsor for this season of Origins. It's a core product that we use daily --> Get 10% off when you use the Notation Signup Link (Terms and conditions apply). This season is also sponsored by SVB and Cooley, two of the earliest and most trusted supporters of our work at Notation.