First Harmonic

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First Harmonic

First Harmonic

@firstharmonic

We are early stage investors who run a go-to-market program for founders.

Entrou em Şubat 2012
22 Seguindo405 Seguidores
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Mia Mabanta
Mia Mabanta@miamabanta·
We hosted 30 of SF’s best engineers at our Builders Table event with @cursor_ai last week. The way we code is changing fast, and Cursor is one of the companies at the forefront. The team shared their perspectives on questions like: - Will engineers even look at their code in a year? - Will the future of coding be in the IDE, the CLI, or in something else entirely? - What will the role of an engineer look like in the future? There are many forums for founders to learn from each other, but fewer for engineers. We loved creating one and hope to do more. If you’re an engineer and interested in attending a future @firstharmonic event, DM me!
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cat
cat@catheryn_li·
Excited to announce that @simpleailab has raised a $14M seed round led by @firstharmonic. For the past year, we’ve been building AI voice agents to transform direct-to-consumer sales. We fundamentally believe that voice AI is the future of all B2C calls.
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J.J. Fliegelman
J.J. Fliegelman@JdotJdotF·
Huge congrats to the Artie team! Incredibly hard product to build and it's amazing what they've accomplished over the past couple years.
Jacqueline Cheong@JacquelineSYC19

Announcing Artie’s $12M Series A. When Robin Tang and I started Artie, the idea was simple: make it easy to deploy real-time streaming pipelines. Streaming pipelines used to be something only a few companies could afford to build. Guaranteeing transactional integrity, handling schema evolution, recovering from failures, and keeping latency low at scale is hard. Most teams limp along with brittle systems. But today, with AI systems that make decisions, trigger workflows, and interact with customers, stale data isn’t just slow - it’s incorrect. Real-time data is becoming non-negotiable. Today, companies like ClickUp, Substack, and Alloy, are processing 700B+ rows of data annually with Artie to power AI/ML workloads, customer-facing analytics, and operational systems. @artie_labs is a fully managed real-time data streaming platform. We move data across systems in real time - so teams can rely on fresh, accurate data to power AI products - without building or maintaining streaming infrastructure. We raised this round to double down on a simple belief: the next generation of data infrastructure will be streaming-first. Huge thank you to @daltonc and @Standard_Cap for leading the round, with continued support from @ycombinator, @PathlightVC, and incredible angels including @arashf, @bennstancil, @chrisbest, @charleshearn, and @lennysan. I also want to thank our team, customers, and partners for supporting our mission. And thank you to Chris Metinko and @axios for capturing the exclusive story. P.S. - If you want the same streaming infrastructure that Netflix and DoorDash have, but want to skip the multi-year build - reach out.

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Mia Mabanta
Mia Mabanta@miamabanta·
First @firstharmonic alumni reunion in the books! Thanks for bringing the good vibes.
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Pedro Franceschi
Pedro Franceschi@pedroh96·
Ali is a special operator and investor. He joined a @brexHQ all hands a few months ago, and was one of the most profound guest speakers ever. One of the learnings from working with Steve Jobs: he was obsessed with the quality of his own thinking. I’m really glad @jaltma captured some of his wisdom on a podcast. Highly recommend listening!
Jack Altman@jaltma

I love the description of Pixar as a miracle factory. How do you create the conditions to make special outcomes more likely? @ROWGHANI helped build Pixar, working closely with Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull in their golden era. He also worked closely with the Twitter founders and then Sam at YC. He’s advised some of the best founders through his work at YC Continuity and now his own fund First Harmonic. I love talking to Ali and always learn something new. Hope you enjoy.

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Ali Rowghani
Ali Rowghani@ROWGHANI·
I get asked a lot what it was like to work with Steve Jobs. Probably the biggest thing I learned is that there is no "good enough" when it comes to the basics: communicating, motivating, and most importantly, thinking. Steve was obsessed with the quality of his own thinking. He was able to generate a mental map of a problem space faster and more deftly than anyone I've known because he worked at it. Over the course of a career, that skill compounds more than anything else. Thanks for the conversation @jaltma
Jack Altman@jaltma

I love the description of Pixar as a miracle factory. How do you create the conditions to make special outcomes more likely? @ROWGHANI helped build Pixar, working closely with Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull in their golden era. He also worked closely with the Twitter founders and then Sam at YC. He’s advised some of the best founders through his work at YC Continuity and now his own fund First Harmonic. I love talking to Ali and always learn something new. Hope you enjoy.

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First Harmonic@firstharmonic·
Congrats to @unifygtm on their Series B! @austinh___ and @HeggieConnor were part of the first @firstharmonic cohort and remain a shining example of how far you can get and how quickly you can move when you are hyper-focused on the right customer.
Austin Hughes@austinh___

Excited to share that we’ve raised a $40M Series B at @unifygtm to transform growth into a science. Many of the fastest growing companies like Cursor, Perplexity, Flock Safety and Airwallex choose Unify to reimagine growth in an AI-native world. This round comes just 9 months after announcing our Series A, and was led by Battery with participation from OpenAI, Thrive and Emergence 👇

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Mia Mabanta
Mia Mabanta@miamabanta·
👋 Sharing a great opportunity for anyone out there who loves to read, write, and learn. We're hiring a part-time writer at @firstharmonic to produce a series of research essays on topics that early-stage founders care about. Probably two pieces per month, each about 1,000–2,000 words, month-to-month contract. Maybe you're an engineer but want to stimulate your brain in a different way. Maybe you work in banking or consulting and are VC-curious. Maybe you're still in school. If you enjoy thinking about businesses and you appreciate good clear prose, it'll be a great time. Email me if you're interested or know someone who might be! (mia@)
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Connor Heggie
Connor Heggie@HeggieConnor·
@ROWGHANI Congrats!! Going through this was a huge accelerant to Unify, can't rec it enough to other founders
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Zeno Rocha
Zeno Rocha@zenorocha·
Ali! I'm so excited about this launch. Working with you for the past year has been super impactful for me personally and for Resend. Before the program, I used to work only in the business and not on the business. What I realized is that if you're always working in the business, you're the bottleneck. You're the reason why your company can only grow this much. If you focus on working on the business, you build something that can truly scale, something much bigger than your own limitations. You can see the flaws in your business and have the opportunity to tackle them earlier rather than later. Thank you for helping us navigate the Series A round. And thank you for being a mentor to me.
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Markie Wagner
Markie Wagner@markiewagner·
@ROWGHANI Forge simply wouldn’t be where it is today without Ali - forever grateful we crossed paths. He's one of the most thoughtful and genuinely good people I’ve met - there’s a reason he’s the first call for so many founders
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Jake Adams
Jake Adams@jakecadams·
This program reshaped how I approach building. @ROWGHANI and his team are world-class at asking the questions that cut straight to what matters. If you're a seed stage founder, this program is a no brainer.
Ali Rowghani@ROWGHANI

I’m excited to announce the public launch of First Harmonic. We are a small team of former operators who invest in early-stage companies and run what I believe is the world’s best go-to-market program for seed-stage founders. We have run six cohorts of the program to date with an NPS of 100 across the nearly 50 founders who have participated. Over a long career in tech, I’ve had the privilege of working with Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull at Pixar, of taking Twitter from $0 in revenue through IPO as the CFO and COO, and of mentoring hundreds of founders at all stages in 10 years as a YC partner. I’ve also been fortunate to invest as an early angel in several breakout AI companies, including Mercor, Decagon, and Cursor. I’ve seen the arc from inception to IPO many times and recognize what separates winning startups from the pack. It's this multi-stage experience as an operator and investor that is uniquely valuable to the founders in our program. What’s this program about? A common challenge that all founders face in the early days is defining their ideal initial customer. Great go-to-market strategy begins with narrow customer selection. Every important decision is downstream of customer definition: roadmap priorities, customer acquisition strategy, sales model, pricing, etc. If you don’t define your customer well, everything else becomes extra hard. In our program, we help founders nail early customer definition through intensive 1:1 work. It’s the point of highest leverage. Our cohorts are small (10 to 12 companies), and we don’t accept applications. Instead, we select founders who have been nominated by people we trust, increasingly by alumni of our program. The program requires a 3–4 hour weekly time commitment over 8 weeks and sets startups on the right go-to-market path for life. The program will always be free and non-dilutive to founders. In order to make this possible, we’ve raised an early-stage fund that covers the costs of running the program. But there are no investment expectations or strings attached to participating. If you’re an early-stage founder, you can read more about what we believe in the link in comments. If you’re a seed investor, we hope to collaborate with you.

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Devin Stein
Devin Stein@devstein64·
First Harmonic is genuinely too good to be true. I feel very lucky to have gotten to work with and learn from @ROWGHANI @JdotJdotF @simonlu @miamabanta. The focus and clarity that they brought to Dosu's ICP and GTM strategy saved us SO much valuable time.
Ali Rowghani@ROWGHANI

I’m excited to announce the public launch of First Harmonic. We are a small team of former operators who invest in early-stage companies and run what I believe is the world’s best go-to-market program for seed-stage founders. We have run six cohorts of the program to date with an NPS of 100 across the nearly 50 founders who have participated. Over a long career in tech, I’ve had the privilege of working with Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull at Pixar, of taking Twitter from $0 in revenue through IPO as the CFO and COO, and of mentoring hundreds of founders at all stages in 10 years as a YC partner. I’ve also been fortunate to invest as an early angel in several breakout AI companies, including Mercor, Decagon, and Cursor. I’ve seen the arc from inception to IPO many times and recognize what separates winning startups from the pack. It's this multi-stage experience as an operator and investor that is uniquely valuable to the founders in our program. What’s this program about? A common challenge that all founders face in the early days is defining their ideal initial customer. Great go-to-market strategy begins with narrow customer selection. Every important decision is downstream of customer definition: roadmap priorities, customer acquisition strategy, sales model, pricing, etc. If you don’t define your customer well, everything else becomes extra hard. In our program, we help founders nail early customer definition through intensive 1:1 work. It’s the point of highest leverage. Our cohorts are small (10 to 12 companies), and we don’t accept applications. Instead, we select founders who have been nominated by people we trust, increasingly by alumni of our program. The program requires a 3–4 hour weekly time commitment over 8 weeks and sets startups on the right go-to-market path for life. The program will always be free and non-dilutive to founders. In order to make this possible, we’ve raised an early-stage fund that covers the costs of running the program. But there are no investment expectations or strings attached to participating. If you’re an early-stage founder, you can read more about what we believe in the link in comments. If you’re a seed investor, we hope to collaborate with you.

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Coffee with One 🇺🇸
Coffee with One 🇺🇸@coffeewithone·
Startups live or die by focus, and First Harmonic helped us lock in on the right ICP early with ruthless focus and execution. That one decision saved us years of wandering. At Octolane AI, so much of our traction comes from staying focused on who we’re really building for and we wouldn’t have gotten there without @ROWGHANI and the First Harmonic team. Huge congrats to Ali and everyone at First Harmonic. The world is a better place to build for founders because of you. ❤️❤️❤️🫡
Ali Rowghani@ROWGHANI

I’m excited to announce the public launch of First Harmonic. We are a small team of former operators who invest in early-stage companies and run what I believe is the world’s best go-to-market program for seed-stage founders. We have run six cohorts of the program to date with an NPS of 100 across the nearly 50 founders who have participated. Over a long career in tech, I’ve had the privilege of working with Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull at Pixar, of taking Twitter from $0 in revenue through IPO as the CFO and COO, and of mentoring hundreds of founders at all stages in 10 years as a YC partner. I’ve also been fortunate to invest as an early angel in several breakout AI companies, including Mercor, Decagon, and Cursor. I’ve seen the arc from inception to IPO many times and recognize what separates winning startups from the pack. It's this multi-stage experience as an operator and investor that is uniquely valuable to the founders in our program. What’s this program about? A common challenge that all founders face in the early days is defining their ideal initial customer. Great go-to-market strategy begins with narrow customer selection. Every important decision is downstream of customer definition: roadmap priorities, customer acquisition strategy, sales model, pricing, etc. If you don’t define your customer well, everything else becomes extra hard. In our program, we help founders nail early customer definition through intensive 1:1 work. It’s the point of highest leverage. Our cohorts are small (10 to 12 companies), and we don’t accept applications. Instead, we select founders who have been nominated by people we trust, increasingly by alumni of our program. The program requires a 3–4 hour weekly time commitment over 8 weeks and sets startups on the right go-to-market path for life. The program will always be free and non-dilutive to founders. In order to make this possible, we’ve raised an early-stage fund that covers the costs of running the program. But there are no investment expectations or strings attached to participating. If you’re an early-stage founder, you can read more about what we believe in the link in comments. If you’re a seed investor, we hope to collaborate with you.

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Caleb Elston
Caleb Elston@calebelston·
Can’t say enough good things about Ali and the team. If you are a founder starting to scale, I cannot recommend working with Ali more strongly. Amazing human and one of the sharpest strategic minds in tech.
Ali Rowghani@ROWGHANI

I’m excited to announce the public launch of First Harmonic. We are a small team of former operators who invest in early-stage companies and run what I believe is the world’s best go-to-market program for seed-stage founders. We have run six cohorts of the program to date with an NPS of 100 across the nearly 50 founders who have participated. Over a long career in tech, I’ve had the privilege of working with Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull at Pixar, of taking Twitter from $0 in revenue through IPO as the CFO and COO, and of mentoring hundreds of founders at all stages in 10 years as a YC partner. I’ve also been fortunate to invest as an early angel in several breakout AI companies, including Mercor, Decagon, and Cursor. I’ve seen the arc from inception to IPO many times and recognize what separates winning startups from the pack. It's this multi-stage experience as an operator and investor that is uniquely valuable to the founders in our program. What’s this program about? A common challenge that all founders face in the early days is defining their ideal initial customer. Great go-to-market strategy begins with narrow customer selection. Every important decision is downstream of customer definition: roadmap priorities, customer acquisition strategy, sales model, pricing, etc. If you don’t define your customer well, everything else becomes extra hard. In our program, we help founders nail early customer definition through intensive 1:1 work. It’s the point of highest leverage. Our cohorts are small (10 to 12 companies), and we don’t accept applications. Instead, we select founders who have been nominated by people we trust, increasingly by alumni of our program. The program requires a 3–4 hour weekly time commitment over 8 weeks and sets startups on the right go-to-market path for life. The program will always be free and non-dilutive to founders. In order to make this possible, we’ve raised an early-stage fund that covers the costs of running the program. But there are no investment expectations or strings attached to participating. If you’re an early-stage founder, you can read more about what we believe in the link in comments. If you’re a seed investor, we hope to collaborate with you.

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