We’re looking for a new Principal for our Harvard Square office.* To give you a sense of what daily life is like at Founder Collective, we’ve assembled an example schedule for our investment team’s newest member:
9:00 AM — Zoom call with an entrepreneur: It’s hard to say what kind of company will start your day. It could be anything from Ad tech to Zoological DNA testing. You’re going to hear pitches for things like online pharmacies, web-based security systems, Korean ecommerce, self-driving cars (and on-demand black car services), many shades of SaaS, and so on. So pick out a cool virtual background, charge your Airpods, and get ready to chat with a company that is changing the world (or at least making some *really* good cat food).
10:00 AM — Live in the future: Test out the dozen new FinTech/HealthTech/EdTech apps you’ve been pitched. Look for cool projects in your preferred Subreddit, Telegram channel, or Discord server. Summarize your findings and share them with the team.
11:00 AM — Help a portfolio company with Series A fundraising:We’re not a life-cycle firm, and as such, we don’t invest in our portfolio company’s future rounds. This setup puts us on the same side of the table with the founders going forward and gives us the ability to offer the unconflicted advice. You’ll help our founders figure out who they should pitch, how much they should be raising, help get their deck into shape, and otherwise navigate the choppy seas of Series A and beyond.
Noon — Virtual lunchtime with your counterpart at a peer fund: We expect everyone on the investment team to network widely to spur deal flow, to find syndication partners, and to refresh our understanding of the market. This used to involve a lot more coffee meetings and sampling Greater Boston’s (underrated) dining options, but in the meantime, place an order with Uber Eats and get to know your peers!
1:00 PM — Build your brand: This role isn’t a behind the scenes position. You will be a face of the fund. We expect you to have ideas about the industry and a desire to share them. This might mean engaging on Twitter (TikTok if you’re really ambitious) or blogging about a current fundraising dynamics. It doesn’t matter if your passion is SPAC financings, GPT-3 technology, or D2C best practices — we want you to share your enthusiasm and experience.
2:00 PM — Due Diligence: We’re not a “spray and pray” firm. Before we invest, we do our homework. A big part of this role is figuring out who we should talk to about a given investment and which data would help test our critical concerns about the startup. You draft a deal document and identify three key areas to probe, then run the questions to ground.
3:00 PM — Meet with a partner to catch up on deals: Every deal is led by a partner, but many would not happen without our principal’s advocacy. It’s not enough to identify the next great company; you’ll need to pound the table for them as well. You’ll also get mentorship from the full partnership regularly.
4:00 PM — Answering the ~137 emails you got today: This role has its energizing moments, but it also involves *a lot* of emails. We pay for Superhuman, but it only takes the edge off. A word of warning, it’s often downbeat — you’re going to have to deliver bad news to 99 founders for each “yes” you get to send.
Interested? A few more notes:
Every day will be different. New technologies, evolving approaches to funding, and novel coronaviruses can upend our companies, and our industry, seemingly overnight.
We’ve backed founders with PH.D.s and people with high school diplomas. Our youngest founder was 18, and our oldest was 63 at the time we invested. We’ve backed startups based in places like LA and Lagos, SF to Seoul, Manhattan and Mexico City, Boston to Boise.
We’re always trying to diversify the communities in which we’re known, and the team that invests in them. Even if you don’t tick every box, we are looking for curious, scrappy, and diverse candidates, who can learn quickly, to join our team. If you think you might be a good fit but have some doubts, do not hesitate to reach out.
If you aim towards a career in venture capital, think of this role as an apprenticeship that will give you a bird’s eye view into one of the most robust portfolios at our stage. Should you decide to re-enter the entrepreneurial arena, you’ll do so with a better understanding of how the industry works and how it can be leveraged more effectively to your ends. And if you want to join a larger company, few roles will do more to build your network in ways that will benefit you for decades to come.
Requirements: We’re looking for someone with deep startup expertise — ideally, you’ve founded a company (everyone on our investment team has) — but if you were an early employee at a rocketship, let’s talk, please. Other than that, we’re open to candidates of all stripes.
Interested? Please email us: Principal@FounderCollective.com
