Launch of First Round Review Website by Shawn BorskyLaunch of First Round Review Website by Shawn Borsky

Launch of First Round Review Website

Shawn Borsky

Shawn Borsky

First Round Capital

I worked closely with First Round Capital and Pentagram to translate their rebrand into a fully functional live website. This included both design and front-end development for the launch of First Round Review, which has since become a widely respected publication covering startups, venture funding, and entrepreneurship.

From New Brand to New Website

A bold new…website

First Round Capital is a seed venture firm known for backing legendary companies like Uber, Square, Warby Parker (and HotelTonight). In 2015, they hired Pentagram to update their brand to a bold new style.
First Round partners enlisted me to help take concept designs using the new brand and implement them. My work included optimization and classic webmaster duties as well as web design and implementation to develop all pages on the website since the team at Pentagram primarily delivered high-level concepts and new identity artifacts so my work often included extrapolating new page designs to match the brand style all the way to deployment of site changes.
Building a Modern Web Magazine

The First Round Review is born

First Round didn't just see themselves as venture funding but a resource for start-ups. This borne the idea of the First Round Review called internally, "Harvard Business Review for startups." When the rebrand was launched, we also set out to build a custom-publishing platform in concert with (now-defunct) Marquee, a custom-blog start-up.
My role included article design and implementation as well as custom-code, API integration of Marquee's platform and back-end integration of Algolia as the embedded web search platform plus additional integration of social media APIs.
First Round Review continues to this day as a popular long-form magazine for startups and has been praised for its content and experience.
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Posted Dec 19, 2025

Developed First Round Review site integrating custom publishing platform and new branding.

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Timeline

Dec 31, 2014 - Dec 30, 2015

Clients

First Round Capital