About The Role
Matchstick Ventures is a $75M early-stage venture capital fund investing at pre-seed and seed in exceptional founders building category-defining companies. We back ambitious software founders “between the coasts” in the US who are building to coastal standards and beyond. This is our fourth fund, and we are a small but mighty team split between Boulder, CO and Minneapolis, MN.
We make approximately 12 investments per year, and we move with conviction. As our first investment hire, you will be the engine of our top-of-funnel, finding, attracting, and qualifying the founders we want to back before anyone else. You will also own the analytical work that helps us make great investment decisions.
You will have direct partner access, broad ownership, and the opportunity to build something. If you are energized by cold outreach, crowded rooms, and the thrill of finding a great company no one else has noticed yet, read on.
What You'll Actually Do
Sourcing & Relationship Development (60%)
- Own top-of-funnel deal flow: build and manage a systematic pipeline of pre-seed and seed companies across our target geographies
- Conduct proactive outbound sourcing via Harmonic, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, cold email, and other channel-appropriate outreach tools, with a bias toward warm intros where possible and creative cold approaches where not
- Attend founder events, meetups, demo days, and dinners in our target markets and serve as a compelling ambassador for the firm, making founders want us on their cap table
- Build and maintain relationships with accelerators, university programs, angel networks, and other early-stage ecosystem players across our target geographies
- Calibrate deal quality to coastal standards: evaluate companies from Denver, Chicago, Austin, Salt Lake, Toronto, Minneapolis, New Mexico and similar markets against the bar set by the best deals being funded in SF and NYC
- Conduct first-look calls with founders and leave them feeling like getting our firm on their cap table is a genuine opportunity, not an interview.
- Ensure partners are meeting with the best-in-class companies in the pipeline you built.
Investment Analysis (20%)
- Own the investment memo from first draft to final version, market sizing, competitive landscape, team assessment, business model, and thesis
- Conduct market research to validate or challenge investment hypotheses; synthesize primary and secondary sources into clear, actionable insights
- Model basic financial projections and analyze deal pricing and terms relative to market comps and stage norms
- Conduct reference calls on founders and early team members
- Support partners in preparing for IC discussions with concise, well-structured analysis
AI Experimenter and Tools User (20%)
- Develops and deploys AI-enabled workflows that measurably improve a) sourcing quality, quantity, and efficiency, b) founder response rates, c) research quality, and bonus for partner productivity.
- Track every conversation, lead, and company in our CRM (Attio) with zero gaps, own the funnel with relentless follow-through and data entry.
Who You Are
Must-Haves
- Based in Denver/Boulder, Minneapolis, Austin, Chicago, Salt Lake City, New Mexico or Toronto: you are not on the coasts, and you understand why that matters
- A natural connector who gets energized, not drained, by walking into a room of strangers and starting conversations
- Obsessive about follow-through: you use tools, systems, and tracking to make sure nothing falls through the cracks
- Extreme self-starter, comfortable with ambiguity and self-direction; you don't need to be told what to do next. You’re creative, inventive, and always looking for better ways to do things.
- Curiosity is at your core, you want to know how things work and do the research to understand it.
- Strong writer and communicator, your memos are concise, your emails get replies, your follow-ups are timely
- Data-driven by instinct: you track what works, kill what doesn't, and iterate fast
- AI fluent, knows and uses AI for sophisticated research and tasks.
Nice-to-Haves (Will Strengthen Your Application)
- Prior experience as a founder or early employee at a startup
- Prior internship or role at a venture capital or private equity firm
- Experience in outbound sales
- Experience using deal-tracking tools (Attio, Notion, Claude and Claude Code, custom scripts, CRM workflows, and beyond)
- Existing startup network
- Experience evaluating early-stage companies at pre-seed or seed
Compensation & Structure
This is a fixed-term position, lasting up to 2 years, and is an amazing learning opportunity for the right candidate to work alongside the partners. The role can either be a full-time position for the right candidate, or can be structured as a part-time position for experienced graduate students and beyond (minimum half-time). We are looking for the right candidate over the right schedule.
- Base compensation: $50,000-$100,000 depending on hours, experience, and fit
- Location: preference for Colorado-based; however, we are remote-friendly within our target geographies; frequent travel to events and meetings required. The position is open only to those with a US work permit.
- This role is a two-year position and is not a partner track position.
If you are interested in this role, please apply using this application link.
