Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Getting a Job in Venture Capital | John Gannon - Co-Founder of Going VC

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Lessons - Getting a Job in Venture Capital | John Gannon - Co-Founder of Going VC · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  So I guess the question is, you teach these things probably in the cohort in the newsletter,
• 0:15
  but what are some tips for people that do want to get a job in venture capital?
• 0:21
  What do they need to do because you mentioned it's not an easy process?
• 0:25
  Yeah, so if you want to dig into a bit around how I just want to actually get a venture capital job,
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  one thing I like to talk about is what I call the five-legged stool.
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  And the five-legged stool is really a way to think about what are the most important things to a VC,
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  because if you put yourself in their shoes, you're going to be in a much better position to understand
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  what they need, what they want, and how to add value to them.
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  And so in terms of what are those five legs, one of those things that VC's care about.
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  So one of the most important things is deal flow.
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  So, combining companies that are investable and ideally finding those companies before other people do.
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  Before it gets competitive.
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  So that's one aspect.
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  There's also for their existing portfolio companies, another leg of the stool is,
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  and as in helping those existing companies go out and raise more money.
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  So if I'm Quiner Perkins and I do a series A in a company,
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  a company's probably going to need a series B, right?
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  And there's going to be an investor that's going to write that series B chat.
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  And so being able to assist in terms of helping other companies that have already raised
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  venture money, kind of go to that next round is another important piece of the job of being a VC.
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  And if you can help VC with that through your network, that's another big value ad.
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  The third is around the investors in the venture capital fund themselves.
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  So they're called limited partners.
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  And so limited partners could be kind of worth individuals,
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  but if you look at like really big venture funds like the Sequoias and the Quiner Perkins,
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  they're getting their money from large endowment, university endowment,
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  folks like the Rockefeller Foundation, right?
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  Like a lot of these really large long scanning institutions are ones that are investing in venture
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  capital. And so if you as a job speaker through your network and access to people in those
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  worlds or high net worth individuals who are interested in investing in venture funds or in
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  startups, that can definitely be a value ad, particularly for newer funds, which are earlier on
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  in their journey where they've not necessarily locked up the Princeton down to write them
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  $20 million check, but maybe they're raising a $5 million fund. And so someone who can write
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  100K check is actually quite meaningful to them, right? So that's another area in terms of ad
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  and value. Hiring is another piece. So if I'm a VC and I've got maybe I'm on the board of
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  678 companies, one of the most important things that I'm trying to do is make sure that
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  company is staffed properly, has a best talent. And although I'm not directly responsible for it,
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  my CEOs of those companies that I work with are going to kind of expect that I'm going to be sending
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  them really high quality folks who can potentially become employees or executives at those companies.
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  And so if you can help with that through your personal network, that's another way you can add value
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  to a VC straight away. And then there's a kind of a fifth bucket which is around business
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  development sales and M&A, which is if you can help a VC's portfolio get in front of people
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  who can buy their products, buy their company or otherwise partner, that's a big value add as well.
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  So as a job seeker, it's kind of up to you to like inventory your network and your skills and
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  your interest and figure out out of those five legs. You're not going to knock all of them on the
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  part, but there's probably a couple that you would kind of gravitate to or have a strengthen.
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  And those are the things that you'd want to lean on in terms of how you want to conduct your
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  search and sort of which firms you might want to approach with what kind of pitch. And then how would
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  you deliver value to them to really show them before you even have a job that you're someone who could
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  actually do the job? For some jobs, it seems like a simple project or something could show some sort
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  of value to a hiring manager, but for a venture capital firm, would it be an introduction to
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  somebody? I guess it depends on what value you bring to the table, but it seems like it's a big
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  ask before you even sit down with somebody to show value. So you have an idea of how you could do
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  that? To make sure I understand the question you're asking, how specifically can a candidate show
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  value in one of those areas? Yeah, sure. So the old flow is a great one to talk about because
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  it's one that's critical right to a VC. They have to make new investments so they need
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  to deal flow. They need to be ideally getting to these companies before other folks do. And so
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  an example would be maybe you went to the school with a bunch of folks who out of that group,
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  there's a few who maybe they started their own businesses while they were in school. Or maybe
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  they were just like insanely smart and they were the kind of people where you look at it and
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  you said, you know, that person is they're going to really do great things in their career. So
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  if you are in touch with those kinds of people from to be your child, doing to be from your
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  college experience, I think people you work with previously kind of keeping tabs on what they're
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  working on. And if you see them working on a new thing that looks like something that could fit
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  into the venture back start-up space, i.e. a software company, an internet company,
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  right, those types of things, then if you're trying to build relationships with
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  C, those are the kind of folks where you want to try to be that connection basically between
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  the people from your network and the VC because it's very compelling if you're starting to develop
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  our relationships with a VC, to be able to come to them and say, hi, you know, this is I'd like
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  to introduce you to my friend Jen. She started this amazing software company. She was at the
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  top of our class at Penn State and, you know, I really wouldn't highly recommend that you
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  choose to look at this company. And oh, by the way, they've already got some paying customers
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  or, you know, whatever the case may be in terms of their status. Like, that is a great way to both
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  deepen a relationship with a VC, but also, it can give you a reason to get in touch with VCs as well.
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  One of the things that I talk a lot about, and we focus on our going VC program is
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  acknowledging what we call an investment thesis. And an investment thesis is really your sort of
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  unique view on a certain sector or market. And by sort of a well-defined view, what I mean by that
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  is having the ability to deep dive on that entire sector, the companies that are in that sector,
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  both the big ones that are maybe public and also the smaller ones that are just getting funded
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  and everyone in between. And then having a really specific angle in terms of which types of
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  companies in that sector, you would invest in and why. So as someone who's trying to get in touch
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  with VCs or get them interested, it's also quite compelling to actually create almost in a written
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  form, which commonly you might see a 15, 20-slot debt that really articulates that thesis. And
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  now that I've seen folks in our program create these investment thesis, sort of document them,
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  and then share the amount I've linked in. And I just emailed my list about this actually
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  a couple of days ago. There was a team of folks who were in my going DC program, two people.
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  They created an investment thesis around AgTech. They posted it. And the post got over 30,
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  I checked the other day, got over 30 comments and over 100 reactions. And even got an inbound,
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  at least one inbound and feeling when I know about there could be more. From a VCs,
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  you said, hey, I saw the investment thesis. I'm a little confused, right? Which is what you want.
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  But that is going the other way where they're coming to you, which is obviously superior to you
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  going in and sort of asking someone if they have any kind of opportunity.