Meka Asonye
“I've been both a company's early sales hire and a VP leading a 100-person global sales team, so I’ve seen firsthand how important it is for technical founders to build a strong commercial foundation from Day 0, long before the first dollar comes in the door. Whether it’s figuring out what to build and who it’s for, or the in-the-weeds details of early pricing and first sales hires, I’m fired up to spend my days helping founders hunt for product-market fit.”
4
Years spent at Stripe as it scaled from 250 to 2000 people
100+
Person global revenue team led as VP at Mixpanel
150
Players helped to draft in a “Moneyball” role for the Cleveland Indians
As a first-generation American from the Midwest, there's nothing I love more than an underestimated founder willing to play the company building game on hard mode — whether they are building bigger satellites, creating more effective 911 tech, or retrofitting drones for GPS-denied environments.
Prior to joining First Round in 2021, Meka served as the VP of Sales & Services at Mixpanel, where he ran their more than 100-person global revenue team and owned the customer lifecycle from first website visit to renewal.
Before Mixpanel, Meka spent four years at Stripe as it scaled from 250 to 2000 people and matured its sales org. When he first joined in 2016, Meka served as one of the payments company's early account executives, leading their first attempts to go upmarket and land enterprise customers. For the next three years, he headed up Stripe's Startup/SMB business, which involved launching outbound sales, optimizing self-serve, building a customer success function, opening new offices, and finding creative ways to holistically support startup customers.
Early on in his career, Meka served as Case Team Leader at Bain in San Francisco and worked in Player Development & Baseball Operations for the Cleveland Indians, where he managed operations of the Minor League system and advised the General Manager on Major League roster and payroll allocation through advanced statistical analysis.
Meka earned a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in Economics and Finance from Princeton and his MBA from Harvard Business School.
SOME OF THE COMPANIES MEKA'S INVESTED IN:
K2 Space
Imagine if large spacecraft made previously impossible missions possible.
Prepared
Imagine if 911 calls instantly came with all the context dispatchers need to respond.
SafetyKit
Imagine if companies could use AI to scale their trust and safety efforts.
Pocus
Imagine if go-to-market teams could unlock the power of their data with AI.
Highlight
Imagine if we could build better physical products by collecting exceptional product data on impossible timelines,
HEAR MORE FROM MEKA:
0-$5M: How to Nail Founder-Led Sales
First Round Partner Meka Asonye interviews founders to uncover their most effective GTM tactics for reaching their first $5M in revenue.
This GTM-Leader-Turned-Investor Crowdsources Early Lessons From Stripe, Figma & More
As he makes the transition from operator to investor, Meka Asonye looks back on his career as a sales leader at Stripe and Mixpanel to offer tactical takeaways and go-to-market lessons.
How to Find Customers in the Dept of Defense: From Prototype to the Pentagon
Meka Asonye in conversation with Steve Blank, Adjunct Professor at Stanford University and co-creator "Hacking for Defense" curriculum for the Department of Defense.
Never Done Sales Before? Meka Asonye Shares GTM Playbooks
To mark his one year anniversary at First Round, Meka Asonye digs into his playbook for founder-led sales, shares advice for founders making their first sales hire, and more.
Forbes: First Round’s Newest Partner Is Stripe Veteran Meka Asonye
Ex-Stripe and Mixpanel manager Meka Asonye — has now joined the firm as its newest investment partner.