Yet Another (ex-)VC Blog

Looking for a copy editor for my upcoming VC careers eBook.  It’s drafted, just need the editing.  11k words and 27 pages.  Let me know if you have any recommendations for good folks to work with on this.

If you would like to be notified when I release the eBook and receive a significant discount on your purchase, please join my mailing list by putting your email address in the field below (and click ‘Submit’). I will not spam you and will only send items of relevance to venture capital and venture capital careers. Promise!

Who says there are no jobs in venture capital? ;). Looks like venture capital firm Greycroft in NYC is hiring a pre-MBA associate for their NYC office, according to Ellie Wheeler’s blog. These guys have backed some solid companies including Buddy Media, Huffington Post, and Joyent. They mostly focus on digital media companies although they have done some deals outside of that main area.

If you are interested in this role, or careers in venture capital, would encourage you to check out my venture capital careers page. Tons of tips for job hunting in VC land from myself and other former and current VCs.

I’d also encourage you to subscribe to my email list. I promise not to spam you and will only send information related to venture capital jobs and careers. Please input your email address in the field (and click ‘Submit’) below if you would like to subscribe.

Looks like Bessemer is looking for an Associate to join their team. Sarah Tavel provides detailed instructions in the blog post about how to apply. If you’re thinking of applying, or are simply interested in the world of venture capital, I’d encourage you to check out my venture capital careers page – lots of tips and information related to the role of a junior VC plus tips for interviewing and job searching.

I’d also encourage you to subscribe to my email list. I promise not to spam you and will only send information related to venture capital jobs and careers. Please input your email address in the field (and click ‘Submit’) below if you would like to subscribe.

I just heard that Highland Capital Partners is hiring a Senior Associate for their IT/Communications venture capital investment team. The role is based in Cambridge, Mass. They are a highly regarded firm and I have some personal experience with them (did a project for them in business school and also worked for one of their portfolio companies, VMTurbo). It’s a great firm and if you’re looking to learn the venture capital business, it would be a great place to cut your teeth.

I’d also encourage you to subscribe to my email list if this job, or others like it, are of interest to you. I promise not to spam you and will only send information related to venture capital jobs and careers. Please input your email address in the field (and click ‘Submit’) below if you would like to subscribe.

(Thanks to Mark Davis who forwarded this one to the Blue Venture Community List)

Venture Capital Analyst at Bessemer Venture Partners

Location: Greater New York City Area10010 (Greater New York City Area)

URL: http://www.bvp.com

LinkedIn Exclusive — this job is available only on LinkedIn

Job Description

BVP is seeking an investment analyst to join the firm for a two year analyst program. The analyst role is ideal for someone who is self-motivated, competitive, passionate about technology, and excited about the opportunity to speak with hundreds of entrepreneurs. The position is located in the firm’s Larchmont, New York office, which is 35 minutes by train from Manhattan.

Analysts gain first-hand experience with the full breadth of venture capital activities and work on the cutting edge of business, technology, and innovation. BVP takes a “roadmap-driven” approach to investing by developing investment theses in sectors that are ripe for innovation and proactively reaching out to companies within these areas. Analysts serve a critical role in working closely with Partners and Associates to map out investment roadmaps, predict emerging trends, and identify exciting investment opportunities.

Analysts’ primary responsibility is to interact with hundreds of entrepreneurs each year in an effort to originate new investments for the firm. Analysts are given the opportunity to work in a wide variety of sectors— including consumer Internet, online retail, mobile, enterprise software, financial services, healthcare IT/services, cleantech, and emerging areas of technology. Analysts also work closely with the firm’s senior professionals to develop investment roadmaps and conduct due diligence processes associated with these opportunities.

The Analyst position provides a unique opportunity to experience the role of a venture capital professional, speak with hundreds of executives at high-growth technology businesses, and gain exposure to all aspects of the venture capital investment process.

Skills

Job Requirements

- BA/BS from Ivy League or equivalent institution.

- Outstanding academic record with significant campus leadership experience/extracurricular achievements.

- Intellectual curiosity and passion for technology/entrepreneurship.

- Basic understanding of business and accounting, but extensive study in these areas is not required.

- Comfort proactively contacting and speaking directly with CEOs of companies.

- One to two years of prior work experience at a leading investment bank, consulting firm or technology business is preferred. Outstanding graduating Seniors from the class of 2010 will also be considered.

- Two year commitment in the New York office. Select analysts who demonstrate exceptional performance will have an opportunity to stay for a third year.

Company Description

Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) is the oldest venture capital firm in the United States, carrying on a tradition of active venture investing that has continued since 1911. With offices in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, Israel, and India, the firm manages one of the largest venture funds in the industry. Over the past 30 years, BVP has taken more than 100 companies public and generated top-decile venture returns.

BVP was an early investor in dozens of companies that have fundamentally changed industries, including Skype, Postini, LinkedIn, Yelp, Diapers.com, VeriSign, BladeLogic, HotJobs, Gerson Lehrman Group, LifeLock, Gartner, International Paper, Maxim, Parametric, Staples, Veritas, Parallels, Sports Authority, and W.R. Grace. BVP invests across investment stages and across all areas of high technology—including Internet, software, digital media, cleantech, biopharma, healthcare IT, and financial services.

Job ID: 844169

Having seen this come up a couple of times over the last couple of weeks, I felt it was worth blogging it.

Don’t give the product sales pitch when you’re pitching an early stage investor.

An investor presentation, although technically a sales presentation (you want the investor to buy equity in your company), should not be a product sales presentation.

Yes, we want to understand the product you have built or are building, but if it’s 100% about the product (or even 70% about the product), it’s hard to tell the story that will convince the VC that this is an exciting team and market opportunity, with the right product at the right time.  Getting bogged down in features and functions is going to take the investor’s eye off the vision and into the weeds.

There’s plenty of time to get into the weeds once you have the investor’s interest, but not in a first meeting.

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• The Two Keys to a successful Venture Capital pitch (startups.typepad.com)

Here’s the first stab at the forward for the VC careers eBook. I’m going to build the content around this, so please let me know if there are topics that you think I missed or that you want to make sure are included in the chapters I’ve outlined here. Comments are very welcomed and appreciated.

Forward

It’s no surprise that it’s not easy to get a venture capital job when you consider some of the factors at play:

• There are very few VC jobs to begin with
• People tend to stay in a VC job for a long time
• Venture capital is not a growth industry; The number of people employed in the field does not typically increase annually (in fact, it may start decreasing going forward)
• VCs only hire through trusted referrals
• VCs are generally well compensated
• VCs work with entrepreneurs who are trying to change the world, or at least the industries in which they operate (which is no small feat, either!)
• Bottom line: VC is a great industry and the jobs are great, too

The combination of scarcity and quality of the jobs makes for a big labor supply/demand imbalance that works mightily against the venture capital job seeker.

• Acknowledgements and thank you’s (A shoutout to everyone that I can remember who helped me or met with me during my search)
• What’s the job of a junior VC? (A discussion of the day-to-day work of an analyst or associate)
• Onramps to venture capital (Discussion of the feeder jobs and industries to the venture capital industry)
• Do you need an MBA?
• What makes a good VC? (Discussion of skils that can help you be successful in this industry)
• Where are the jobs? (Finding/creating venture capital job opportunities)
• Where are the internships? (Finding/creating internship opportunities as an undergrad or grad student)
• Introductions and followups (The lifeblood of a VC job hunt)
• The Informational Interview (Once you get it, how to get the most out of it)
• Offer negotiations (If you’re fortunate enough to have offers to join multiple firms)
• Exit options (If you’re not a VC lifer, some thoughts on careers that might make sense post-VC)
• Final advice
• Online information sources (Sites and blogs that I found useful during my job hunt)

If you are interested in careers in venture capital, think about subscribing to my mailing list. I promise not to spam you and will only send information related to venture capital jobs and careers. Please input your email address in the field (and click ‘Submit’) below if you would like to subscribe.

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• Venture Capital Careers Panel at Columbia Business School (johngannonblog.com)

(This post is one in a series of posts and third-party resources related to careers in venture capital.)

As a junior staffer at a VC firm, I think its important to understand where and how you can be helpful to portfolio companies.  The advice I received from my venture capital teachers Stuart Ellman and Will Porteous of RRE Ventures (blog) has stuck with me, and I’ve tried to operate using that advice since starting my VC career.

I’m paraphrasing here (it’s been about a year since the class where we discussed it) but in essence, the advice was to simply be helpful and humble.

Here are some examples of ways that a junior VC can add value:

• Business development: Introducing the company to potential customers and partners in their network.
• Fundraising: Introducing the company to other VCs during the fundraising process and helping the company develop their investor pitch materials.
• Recruiting:  Portfolio company is looking for a couple of engineers?  Get the job description, post it on some boards that might be relevant and forward it out to your LinkedIn network.  Maybe make some phone calls to folks in your personal network to see if anyone would be interested in the roles.
• Strategy: If you have an interest in corporate strategy and/or a background in strategy consulting, and the company is looking to explore new markets or the competitive landscape, see if you can lend some of your experience by helping crunch numbers, helping to put together the board presentation, etc.
• Listening and learning: Learn as much as you can about the company and the industry in which it operates.  Attend board meetings and listen!  VC is an apprenticeship business, so in many cases, the best approach is to sit down, shut up, and open your ears!

Company management, the VC partners who have invested in the company, and the founders will be adding the most value and steering the ship.  As a junior staffer at a VC firm, your job is to be ready to help out wherever they identify a need they’d like you to address OR to identify a need and then socialize it with your boss(es) at the firm to see if its something they’d like you to pursue.

You definitely don’t want to go off half-cocked, ginning up initiatives and projects without making sure that they are viewed as value-add by the partners and company management.

If there are any other junior VCs out there (I know some of you are lurking!), it would be great to hear some of your thoughts on what works and what doesn’t related to working with portfolio companies.

The most dynamic entrepreneurs don’t have a pitch – they tell you a story.

Everyone loves a good story, and I think that story can really help connect you with potential investors.

For example, I recently spoke to an entrepreneur who started a company based on his experiences from being hospitalized for a severe illness.  You could sense that he was intrinsically motivated by his experience and was leveraging that motivation to bring that day in, day out intensity that leading a startup requires.

Not all pitches are going to have elements of life-threatening illnesses or transformative experiences.

However, it can be just as compelling to share detailed anecdotes from your previous work or less intense parts of your life and use that to paint a picture about why you’re the right person to have started your company.  And why you are intrinsically motivated to succeed, no matter the odds.

So, the next time you meet an investor, think about telling them a story.

Recently I have been approached by people looking for an internship or job with our firm. We’re not hiring or looking for interns right now but a few things jumped out at me about the methods that were used to reach me.

Most people who contacted me sent a blind email having found my email address on our firm website. Also, almost everyone sent a generic cover letter that was not customized.

Now, I did read and reply to each of these inquiries, but my guess is that many VCs (and I’m speaking from experience when I was looking for a job in VC over the last year) would not answer this ‘cold call’ email.

So if I were looking for a VC job, what could I do to improve my chances of getting a meeting with the VC about potential internships or jobs? Some thoughts…

• Use LinkedIn to find someone in your network who may know the VC you’d like to reach.
• If you have no other way to reach the VC except through a blind email, take time to customize your cover letter pitch to the firm (or the person at the firm) you’re targeting.
• Talk to me about some interesting companies in spaces our firm might be interested in and offer to connect me with them.
• Don’t ask for a job or an internship – ask for advice. If you ask me if I am hiring and I’m not, I will probably say “we’re not hiring” versus if you ask me “can you talk to me about careers in VC, I want to learn” I’m more apt to engage in a dialog (and I don’t think I’m unique in that respect amongst VCs).

If you’ve had some success reaching VCs to discuss jobs or internships, what has worked for you?

If you liked this post, and are interested in careers in venture capital, think about subscribing to my mailing list. I promise not to spam you and will only send information related to venture capital jobs and careers. Please input your email address in the field (and click ‘Submit’) below if you would like to subscribe.

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