# Todd Jackson

> Todd Jackson is a Partner at First Round Capital, one of Silicon Valley's most storied seed-stage venture funds, where he backs pre-seed and seed-stage founders building B2B SaaS, AI, and enterprise products. His path to the table was anything but conventional: he helped build Gmail from beta to 200M users at Google, rewired Facebook's News Feed under Zuckerberg, built and sold a 2M-user Android app (Cover) to Twitter, and led Dropbox through its 2018 IPO as its first VP of Product and Design. He created First Round's widely cited Product-Market Fit Method, a rigorous four-level framework that has guided 75+ early-stage founders. Rare among VCs, Jackson holds all three operator lenses - big-tech product leader, startup founder, and public-company exec - and deploys them in service of the founders he backs.

- **Role:** Partner at First Round Capital
- **Organizations:** First Round Capital, Google, Facebook, Cover, Twitter, Dropbox
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science, Stanford University
- **Known for:** Led Gmail from beta to 200M+ users at Google; championed Gmail IMAP (free, against industry norm) and the Gmail Labs experimental features platform, PM on Facebook News Feed and Groups - working alongside Zuckerberg on the defining social product of its era, Founded Cover (Android lock screen app) that reached 2M+ users entirely through word-of-mouth with zero paid acquisition

## Career timeline

- **2004-2009** — Associate Product Manager then Product Lead at Google; joined the second-ever APM cohort; led Gmail from beta to 200M+ users
- **2009-2013** — Product Manager at Facebook; led News Feed, Photos, and Groups; worked directly with Zuckerberg on the News Feed redesign
- **2013-2014** — Co-founded Cover, a smart Android lock screen app; grew to 2M+ users with zero paid acquisition; seed-funded by First Round Capital
- **2014** — Cover acquired by Twitter in April 2014; joined Twitter to lead Android strategy, then became Director of Product Management for Content & Discovery
- **2015-2018** — VP of Product & Design at Dropbox - the company's first ever; led product and design org through the 2018 IPO; spearheaded the pivot to B2B SaaS by shutting down the Carousel photo app
- **2018-2020** — Founder-in-Residence at First Round Capital; embedded at the firm for ~2 years
- **2020-present** — Partner at First Round Capital; focuses on pre-seed/seed B2B SaaS and AI; created the PMF Method program; led 75+ founders through the product-market fit framework

## Achievements

- Led Gmail from beta to 200M+ users at Google; championed Gmail IMAP (free, against industry norm) and the Gmail Labs experimental features platform
- PM on Facebook News Feed and Groups - working alongside Zuckerberg on the defining social product of its era
- Founded Cover (Android lock screen app) that reached 2M+ users entirely through word-of-mouth with zero paid acquisition
- Successfully managed Cover's acquisition by Twitter in 2014, generating competing offers before closing in three weeks
- Served as Dropbox's first VP of Product & Design; led the strategic pivot to B2B SaaS and shepherded the company to its 2018 IPO
- Created First Round Capital's Product-Market Fit Method - a four-level framework that has guided 75+ early-stage founders
- Conducted the 'Paths to PMF' interview series featuring founders from Vanta, Verkada, Lattice, Looker, and others
- Portfolio investments include Roblox, Uber, Square, Flexport, Verkada, SingleStore, Vanta, Blue Apron, Sift, Fal.ai

## Latest updates

- **2025-10** — Portfolio company Fal.ai (multimodal AI) crossed $95M ARR and raised at a $4B+ valuation
- **2025-05** — Invested in Parag Agrawal's new startup @p0, an AI agent infrastructure company, via First Round Capital
- **2024-04** — Featured on Lenny's Podcast presenting his four-level product-market fit framework to a wide audience
- **2024-01** — Continued running the Product Market Fit Method free program for early B2B founders

## Links

- Website: https://www.firstround.com/team/investing/todd-jackson
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/tjack

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/todd-jackson
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-25