How to decide which VCs to reach out to
How to figure out which funds and individuals you should reach out to
If you’re reading this guide on creating a target list for venture networking, that means you’ve likely read my introductory post summarizing what this series of articles is meant to accomplish. You then decided that what I wrote was either interesting or enough of a dumpster fire to be entertaining, and you consequently clicked the link that brought you here. In either case, happy to have you!
So, if you recall from the last post, the first step in landing venture interviews is to create a list to keep track of your target investors. In order to accomplish that, I’ve broken down the task into the below sub-steps:
- Set up the skeleton of your list
- Figure out a target geographic scope
- Identify all of the “low hanging fruit” investors in that geography
- Identify all of the remaining investors in that geography based on:
a. Their individual or fund focus area of investment
b. Stage of investment - Figure out contact information
Set up the skeleton of your list
You can use a CRM program if you prefer. You can also tailor the columns to your liking. The first key here is to track your network prospects: a) who you’re scheduled to meet with, b) who you’re in contact with though no official meeting on the calendar yet, and c) who you’d like to reach out to. The second key is to track your existing network: a) who you’ve now met with, b) details of how the conversation went, and c) what types of deals they might like to see in the future.
Figure out a geographic scope
My experience has led me to believe that it’s valuable to target one geography at a time for a couple of different reasons.
First, you need to keep in mind that the goal here is to end up knowing people that know the people who are hiring. In order for that to happen, you need to reach a critical mass within your network so that you’re always one degree of separation from any individual investor.
You also need to consider that despite the globalization of venture, you still tend to see that ecosystems are organized by geography. Investors in one geography tend to raise capital, make investments, and collaborate with other investors within their same geography. So, if you spread your network too thin geographically you won’t reach that aforementioned critical mass in any specific geography and will likely struggle to get the introductions that you’re looking for later down the line.
Second, focusing on geography helps with filtering information as you add to this list in the future. Once you’ve sat down and created a preliminary target list, you’ll then continue to add to it based on information you encounter sporadically down the line. For example, you’ll read one morning in one of your newsletters that a GP from a brand name fund is leaving to raise her own fund. Having a geographic scope makes digesting future information and adding to your list a more manageable exercise. Without it (plus other filters like an industry scope), you’d be overwhelmed trying to process every last little event that happens in the world of venture and entrepreneurship.
And third, in the event that you’re going to take a trip out to that location, you’ll get a stronger ROI on your time if you can fill your schedule with multiple meetings back to back.
Identify all of the low hanging fruit
Once you’ve identified a geographic location, you need to think about the networks or communities that you already belong to that can jumpstart the process. Members (typically investors or founders) of that ecosystem that belong to your same networks will be a) most likely to respond to you and b) most likely to introduce you to other people/be a champion for you in the ecosystem.
Low hanging fruit would be members of the geographic ecosystem that:
- Went to the same high school as you
- Went to the same university as you
- Previously worked at the same firm as you
These are going to the first people you target in your search. But how do you find these people?
I found a couple of ways that worked particularly well for me:
Join your alma mater’s LinkedIn alumni group
If you’ve also filled out your own profile to say you work in venture capital, the alumni group will show you how many people work in your industry before you even request access. It’ll look like this:
If you have access to Pitchbook, search People by university
You start by clicking the magnifying glass search icon on the left panel and then clicking on “MDs & Partners at GPs.” (shown below)
You then have the option to apply a number of different filters, one of which is “University/Institution.” (shown below)
These are just a couple of ways that I found useful, but there are always going to be tons of creative ways for you to get the information you’re looking for.
Identify the remaining VCs in the ecosystem
Once you’ve identified the low hanging fruit, you then want to start to build a list of target firms based on their investment focus and/or the stage they invest in. Once you’ve identified a firm, you can target specific individuals within that firm but should ultimately be open to speaking to anyone that works there.
The reason you want to focus on their investment focus area is that once you’re speaking to them, if you can at the very least ask some solid questions about that area or stage, you’ll be much more memorable. Even better would be to offer some perspective on trends in the space or a point of view on companies that you believe are positioned to succeed. We’ll talk more about that when we talk about conversations with investors, but for now you should know that targeting the right people will make leaving an impression easier once you’re in front of them.
And hopefully the “low hanging fruit” that you speak to will be able to introduce you to other investors on your target list. Again, it’s important to note that this list will constantly be growing as you learn about new firms and individuals that you hadn’t considered prior.
Figure out contact information
The last piece of information before the first iteration of your list is complete is the contact information. If you have access to Pitchbook, the GOAT tool, you can pull the email address of tons of investors. But as you’ve already figured out, Pitchbook is not free. So, Clearbit is a free email extension that can also help. If you try to get creative and still aren’t able to find an email address that you’re looking for, you can always slide into some LinkedIn or Twitter DMs. Contrary to Instagram, there’s no shame spending time in these DMs.
Final note: My dear friend Julia mentioned one last piece of advice that I couldn’t agree with more. It reads as follows:
One of the things that held me back early on in my VC pursuit is that I wanted a comprehensive list, perfect thesis, etc. before reaching out to the first person.
You only need a couple of people on your list to get going. Even if someone is still working on putting together this list, they should contact one person as soon as possible. I really believe in the idea of momentum in VC recruiting, and it starts with one email — stat!
