Program Overview
How have the best operators made the leap into venture capital? Somewhere along the line, someone invited them into the room. For many, this meant attending the right school or having the right network of friends and family. For many others without that level of access, the invitation never came.
Consider this your invitation.
The Seven Seven Six Operator in Residence Program is a full-time, paid, one-year appointment designed to engage high-potential operators who are interested in pursuing a career in venture capital.
Whether you’re a developer, a marketer, or a product manager, working on the sales team, people team, comms team, or, yes, even finance — we consider you an operator. In addition to supporting our founders in your operational area of expertise, you’ll also be learning the skills to become an investor. Through hands-on inclusive experiences (pitch meetings, office hours with portfolio companies, deals meetings), formal mentorship programming, and individualized learning tracks, the goal is for each resident to graduate with the experience necessary to launch a thriving career in venture capital as our alums.
We aim to provide a front-row seat to how great investors work, share knowledge and learn via our internal tools and processes, open up our networks, and — most important to Seven Seven Six and our founders — invite critical, new perspectives to support our portfolio.
Program Mission & Vision
Shift the traditional investor persona. Maximize the returns. We believe, above all else, that the people responsible for funding our future should represent the interests of the world in which we live. For the hands-on builder seeking to pivot their operational expertise towards investing in the next big deal, the Seven Seven Six Operator in Residence Program validates the venture capitalist archetype beyond the traditional finance track. The next generation of high-return investors will have a broader range of skill set, network, and perspective that allows them to identify more complex and comprehensive trends. The next generation of founders want investors with real, recent, and relevant experience. This program is our commitment to investing in both of these trends with the goal of better supporting our portfolio and producing greater returns.
Operator ➡️ Investor
We fundamentally believe that the best operators make the best investors. World-class operators know how to identify problems or inefficiencies and can quickly operationalize solutions that serve the entire organization. This is exactly the type of support founders want from their investors. And this is exactly why we’re looking to shatter the existing investor archetype.
As evidenced by the rise of Solo Capitalists and the unbundling of every other industry, the future of venture is biased toward individuals who offer more than just capital. The best founders care about the person investing in them just as much, if not more, than the logo of the firm they represent.
At Seven Seven Six, we strive to be the most valuable investor our portfolio companies ever have. We can do this because we’ve been there before, building — and even turning around — multi-billion-dollar startups. Leaning on our own solution sets and experiences, we’re able to creatively and collaboratively help our founders avoid pitfalls or navigate through challenges when they’ve become stuck. We know first-hand the incredible lift a true operator with recent, relevant experience can bring to entrepreneurs.
In addition to access, we also know that the truly great venture investors have built their intuitive muscles over time; pitch by pitch, rep by rep. We can help you build that reputation and gain that experience, not only through the cosign of hiring you, but by giving you exposure to exactly how we work. Given our prior investing track record — if you help every one of our founders — you’re very likely to help the future CEO of a billion dollar company.
What’s more, we don’t just talk about the need for a stellar reputation. We actively seek the feedback from our portfolio founders to ensure each and every one of us is improving and honoring the commitments we’ve made along the way.
Help us set our companies up for success by sharing your knowledge. In exchange, you’ll get a front-row seat to every aspect of managing a venture capital firm. You’ll graduate having clocked real hours in pitch meetings, in office hours, and working directly with the companies we fund. The operator becomes the investor.
Job Expectations
Your job every morning when you wake up is to help our portfolio founders as much as possible. Second, it’s to support the rest of the team — helping us to help our portfolio founders as much as possible. It starts and stops with our founders.
This job IS:
✅ to learn and be helpful! That is how you build your reputation in venture. Our commitment is to give you access and opportunity to learn the intricacies of institutional investing… and then help you get a job in venture after you graduate.
✅ about being a part of the Seven Seven Six community and then moving on. Seven Seven Six is not your destination. We already know how amazing you’re going to be. It would be selfish for us to keep you here with us for the long haul. You’ll have so much good work to do out there with your new career. You will forever be a Seven Seven Six alum and you will represent us wherever you go. We are committed to your success no matter where your path leads. We’ll be here, ramping up a new cohort of Seven Seven Six OiRs to join you in the chapter ahead.
This job is NOT:
❌ deal sourcing. We’ll teach you what we know about building unique deal flow and attracting the best founders, but your job is not delivering us the next unicorn. We want you in the trenches with our founders, helping set them up to be the next billion dollar company in the Seven Seven Six portfolio.
❌ politics, ass-kissing, or ‘learning the job’ because you want a gig at Seven Seven Six at the end of the year. After graduation, you will move on to have an impact on the ecosystem.
❌ competing with your colleagues for the top slot. There is no top slot. You’re actually on the same team here!
Qualifications
- A perspective you’ve observed to be missing in venture capital
- Recent, relevant experience building at a tech startup
- We welcome applications with a wide range of years experience, starting with as few as 3 years up to people with decades worth of experience looking to make a career shift
- Deep understanding of building your functional area of expertise from the ground up and a strong instinct for when to offer it versus when to listen to others
- Genuine passion for creating, powered by strong internal personal drive
- Service-oriented and compassionate
- Excellent, inclusive communication skills
- Culture additive
- Knows that humility and confidence do not have to be mutually exclusive
- Keen interest to work in venture capital
- Flexible and focused on solutions
- US based
That’s it. We don’t care where you went to college—or even if you did. We don’t want your resume or a cover letter. It doesn’t matter who you know. We care about what you can do to help our portfolio founders better than anyone else and why you’ll work harder than any of them to do exactly that over the next year.
It’s also worth noting that we encourage anyone to apply that may be interested, even if you feel you don’t meet 100% of the qualifications above. This is our first time running a program like this and there is a good chance we may have overlooked, under-counted, or over-indexed on some of these qualifications. So, please — apply. You know what they say about missing shots…
Compensation & Benefits
💸 Each Operator in Residence will receive an annual salary of $140,000, regardless of the operational area of expertise, years or experience, or US location
⚕100% paid employee and dependent healthcare premiums
🏠 Work from anywhere in the United States
💕 Generous & inclusive leave policies
🕓 Flexible work hours and PTO
📱 Cell phone and internet stipend
📚 Supportive culture designed to help you develop and grow
🎁 A host of unique perks and fringe benefits
Hiring Process
Step 1:
The Application: We’ve designed an open-ended application to get to know you better as an operator, creator, and coach; key elements to being a great investor. Feel free to share anything about yourself that will let us peek into who you will be as a resource for our portfolio companies. We are not asking for a resume because we think you’ll know best the way to tell your story.
Time Commitment: ~45-60 minutes
Step 2:
The Project: Through a recorded session, we’ll share more about how we’ve taken our own experiences and turned them into tools to support our founders. From there, we’ll offer a prompt for you to answer after viewing the session on how you might do the same. Our hope is that you’re expanding on a previous project, not creating something new for this application. Expect for us to ask you to flex your creative muscle!
Time Commitment: 30 minutes to view the session, <60 minutes for the independent project work
Step 3:
The Interview: We’ll have an hour-long conversation with our entire team and you. Not only will we want to know more about your story and what gets you excited about becoming an investor, but we’ll ask you about your project and how it should be a part of every founder’s toolkit. To prepare for the interview, we may send a brief questionnaire to get to know your predilections better. (We promise there are no right answers, but it will help us to understand your core motivations and drivers more quickly.)
Time Commitment: 60 minutes
While we aren’t interested in resumes, we will likely be looking at your LinkedIn page to get a better sense of your professional voice. Please be sure to include any relevant links in your application that you want to be sure we’re directing our attention to. We will also be asking for and checking references. Please use the application form as your opportunity to shine a light on any parts of your professional journey that you may be particularly proud of.
Keep in mind we’re also building an OiR team. We don’t presume to know what the outcome will look like, nor do we have set expectations for what functional areas our OiR team will cover. We do know that we would like each operator to bring a unique skillset to broaden our ability to more holistically support our portfolio. The only way we’ll put together the best group is to know everything about what you’re expecting to bring to the investment table. There are no right answers – only the ones most authentic to you.
If interested, please apply here.
