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MenuHow do I land a job at a VC firm?
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How do you land a job anywhere?
I like you file this under "job search strategies"
Text me, we will work out a great strategy...
Guy Kawasaki answers this better than I could: http://guykawasaki.com/the_venture_cap/
😊
You may start finding out opportunities with Investment Bankers who focus upon startups. You will learn a lot and then you may utilise this experience to find a job with a VC.
Hi I am Priyanka.
Lightspeed Venture Partners
Go to the profile of Alex Taussig
Alex Taussig
Partner at Lightspeed. Focused on tech+pop culture. Current: Daily Harvest, Vector, Zola. Past: thredUP, Jaunt, RentJuice/$Z, $TWOU, $CBLK, $IMPR, Vertica/$HPQ.
Feb 21, 2017
VC has a lot in common with investigative journalism. Less paper though. (Source: “Spotlight” Movie.)
How to land an Associate job in VC
Associate jobs in venture capital are rare. I was fortunate enough to land one of these roles 8 years ago and learned a ton by starting out on this path.
Around this time of year, I receive a couple emails each week asking for advice on breaking into VC. Here’s some boilerplate guidance to get you started on your search.
Do you even want this job?
VC is a peculiar beast. It shares little with product management, engineering, finance, or other previous jobs you may be coming from.
Investigative journalism is more similar to VC than these other professions. You develop a nose for something interesting and unknown. You chase down a lead, putting your foot in the door when it’s often not welcome. You scrounge around for data to inform your thesis. You compile your analysis and have conviction to publish (or in this case, invest).
Investigative journalism requires resourcefulness, rigorous analysis, and a strong sense of purpose. It also requires a thick skin. You will be told by more “experienced” people that you’re wrong, or that you’re wasting your time. It will take years to develop your “gut” instincts, so you need lots of patience in the meantime. And you’ll make plenty of mistakes. The payoff is huge and well worth the journey, but the journey itself can be arduous.
Is that the kind of job you want? Would you prefer it over working with your product team, writing code, or building and presenting financial models? If so, then you might enjoy being an Associate.
Find your superpower.
No single job adequately prepares you for VC. The best VCs do not share a single background. While the industry is less diverse than it should be, diversity seems to be increasing. Our belief is that diverse firms will outperform over time.
Instead of focusing on past job skills or education, focus on your “superpower.” It will likely fall into one of these three dimensions:
Access to a proprietary network for deal flow,
Unusually deep understanding of a trend or sector, or
Some ineffable reason why entrepreneurs enjoy spending time with you.
Ideally, you have more than one of these superpowers, but even one will do if it’s sufficiently strong.
For example, you may have been an early employee at a successful company and know all the engineers who will likely do their own startup. Or, you may have studied and blogged about a particular sector for years and have deep insight into future trends. Or, you may be excellent at throwing dinner parties that founders want to attend.
Whatever your superpower is, figure it out and position yourself around it.
Build a firm list. Get intro’s from portfolio company CEO’s.
Lists of top VC firms are not hard to come by. CBInsights did one last year. Only 19 firms have more than one partner listed. While the list is certainly not definitive, it illustrates that there are few top firms, and hence fewer opportunities for you to find good fit. You should prioritize those firms where your superpower uniquely fills in a hole on their team, or in the sectors they’ve invested in.
Once you have your list, you should request intro’s from founders who have received investment from those firms. Getting the intro is an acid test for your ability to network your way to founders. Plus, an introduction request from a portfolio company CEO is never ignored.
Remember: your only goal at this point is to get the meeting. You don’t need to “close the deal” just yet.
A few other tips here:
Reach out to senior partners. They will have more visibility into the hiring needs of the firm.
Reach out to partners who share something with you — an interest, an college or hometown, a publicly stated opinion, etc. Start with a common ground to build rapport.
Deeply research the portfolio. Have strong opinions about deals the firm has done, both positive and negative.
Don’t worry if the firm has an open rec or not. If they don’t have one now, they may in the near future.
Create a sense of urgency.
https://medium.com/lightspeed-venture-partners/how-to-land-an-associate-job-in-vc-c4f14aeffafb
For further queries you can consult me.
Related Questions
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How can a failed 40 year old tech entrepreneur find a job at a startup?
Carolyn's points are spot-on. Tactically speaking, I would suggest that you make contact with the recruiting partners at the top VCs. Greylock, a16z and others have partners specifically focused on helping their portfolio companies with recruiting. Cold calls and emails with a "I'm an entrepreneur that has built two companies, one of which grew to X in Y time, and the other grew to X in Y time. I'm interested in exploring opportunities within your portfolio who are looking to scale-up their growth and sales" should get some discussions initiated with these recruiting partners. Stage of company matters too. You're more likely to find a fit with a company who is post a $1m seed raise and already scaling-up. I'd also think a lot about what role you're interviewing for. The problem with a generalized entrepreneurial background is that it can be perceived as "jack of all trades, master of none." So in order to improve your resume, you might be best to be 2nd to a great growth lead or be the first hire under a VP Sales. Also, I'd suggest that you research the ages of the founders. If they are under 30, they are more likely to be biased to hire younger talent, but over 30, that bias often swings the other way. I'd recommend you call Carolyn if you want help on how best to present yourself to prospective employers. I'm happy to talk to you about your background and experience and recommend more specifically the kinds of companies and roles that might be the best fit for you. Best of luck!Tom WilliamsTW
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What roles should the CEO and CTO have in a VC meeting?
The more important first impressions to leave a VC with are: 1) That you both are credible and inspire confidence that you can execute the plan you're fundraising on. 2) That there is good chemistry and a great relationship between the two of you; 3) That you can adequately address the concerns/objections/questions the VC raises. The CEO is expected to do most of the talking because the CEO should be the best person in the company at articulating the vision and value of the product and company you're building. If your CTO is comfortable presenting part of the pitch, it would be ideal for the CTO to speak to the product slides. The most important thing is for the CTO not to be a "bump on the log" meaning that you don't want them sitting there for most of the presentation with nothing to say. If you feel that's the case, you really shouldn't bring your CTO. Most VC meetings will not get technical and under the hood. Each question answered should be answered by the person best qualified to speak to that question. You should make eye-contact with your partner and use subtle body language to find a way to cue the other person to speak to that question or simply offer "CTO, would you like to answer that?" Bottom line, make sure that the CTO can speak confidently enough about the product and vision, otherwise -unless specifically asked by the VC - come alone. Fundraising is a big distraction to building and a good VC will always respect that in a first meeting, the CTO can be excused from attending in priority of building product. Happy to talk to you both on a call about helping get you feeling a bit more confident and prepared before your meeting. I was formerly a VC associate for a $500m fund and have raised money from VCs as a serial entrepreneur.Tom WilliamsTW
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What is the generally agreed upon "good" DAU/MAU for mobile apps?
You are right that the range is wide. You need to figure what are good values to have for your category. Also, you can focus on the trend (is your DAU/MAU increasing vs decreasing after you make changes) even if benchmarking is tough. Unless your app is adding a huge number of users every day (which can skew DAU/MAU), you can trust the ratio as a good indication of how engaged your users are. For games, DAU/MAU of ~20-30% is considered to be pretty good. For social apps, like a messenger app, a successful one would have a DAU/MAU closer to 50%. In general most apps struggle to get to DAU/MAU of 20% or more. Make sure you have the right definition of who is an active user for your app, and get a good sense of what % of users are actually using your app every day. Happy to discuss what is a good benchmark for your specific app depending on what it does.Srikrishnan GanesanSG
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How do you get exposure on AngelList to attract angel investors?
What of the following things does your startup have? > Founders who have graduated from prestigious universities / previously exited companies to known acquirers / worked for a known companies (with known being a brand-name company such as Google, Amazon, Facebook etc) > Three or more months of statistically meaningful growth (e.g. for easy sake, double digit growth of a number in the thousands) > At least one investor who is active on AngelList (defined in the ideal state by at least one investment in a company who raised their round through AngelList and ideally whose social graph is connected to "high signal" members of the AngelList network) If you have none of these things, then at least, have advisors and referrers who have a strong AngelList profile. And another option is to seek out the AngelList scouts and pitch them directly. They are more open to this than anyone else and I've seen companies with very little traction and very little social proof get featured because a scout believes in the founder and/or the story. Without any or most of the above, it will be difficult to stand out or build relationships via AngelList, in my opinion. I assume now AngelList operates on a concept similar to the LinkedIn "degrees of connection" model, whereby an entrepreneur can now send unsolicited messages to investors so long as there is a degree of connection between the investor and the company. I get a few unsolicited emails a week from companies whose advisers or investors aren't people I follow but that because of the way they determine "connection strength", these unsolicited emails still gain my attention. I assume this is the case for all investors. So the more that you can build your list of advisers and referrers, the more connections you can solicit. That said, AngelList's inbound email system is almost entirely ineffective for "cold" emails to really high-profile investors. Happy to share with you what I think to be your best options for raising profile for your company.Tom WilliamsTW
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What are the best books to learn about Leveraged Buyouts and other creative financing topics?
If you want information that matters in "Creative Financing Techniques" find a person with the experience/insight. Most of what is in books is dated. Many of the more creative methods are a function of current tax code and market factors (like QE).Carter WilliamsCW
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