Why Working at a VC is the Best Idea after Business School
A short look into the most demanded employers for students coming straight out of business school confirms the cliche – at the top of the list range the renowned consulting or investment banking firms, closely followed by Tech Giants, consumer good conglomerates and financial services companies.
That’s understandable: regardless whether you chose to study business to take a leadership position in society or because you simply had no idea what else to do, the goal after graduating is to see several industries in the shortest amount of time. This way you can procrastinate the decision of where to go until you have a better overview, or until you get cynical enough to not care anymore. Moreover, “A strong brand on the CV opens many doors” – which in essence means to keep those doors open as we couldn’t decide for one directly after school. Lastly, such employers function as “business school extensions”, having intense work schedules and teaching the highly demanded MS office skills.
Don’t get me wrong – I think this path is absolutely great. I also am an acolyte of “The Machinery” cult, as it is a proven path to success. Nonetheless, I wanted to share some insights I gained in the last few months.
Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur
I remember a discussion we once had in a university class: I asked my colleagues who in the room plans to become an entrepreneur at some point of their life – and literally the entire class raised their hand. While everyone talks about interviews in banks and management consultancies, the interest in Startup is almost always there. Obviously, the charm of having *the* billion dollar avocado-toast idea and getting into the 20 under 20 Forbes list is especially compelling to us naive (visionary) business students. This doesn’t change that ~90% of graduates would be eager to start their own business, but feel they need to build up a network, skills and a market overview before they can venture into their own project. The plan to achieve it through “The Machinery” is often well meant, but I guess often times life gets in between and we end up working for those Forbes 500 companies we wanted to disrupt.
Same goes for me: this is/was the plan for me beginning of this year, when I sent out applications to the glorious strategic consultancies you all know. Getting rejected was the best that could happen to me: it forced me to think about what I really want to do (avocado toasts), and which non-generic path can lead me there.
And that’s how I came across VCs.
What you’ll also learn at a VC
I think I’ll never forget the first interview I had with Creandum:
“Give me 5 VCs in Europe you know.”
“I guess I couldn’t name exactly 5…”
“Then let’s do 10 instead?”
I’ve no idea how I got this internship after that dialogue, but it shows how my knowledge about the European Startup environment looked like 6 months ago. 3 weeks later, I started in the Berlin Creandum office, and since then I experienced a learning curve of a steepness I probably had the last time when I was 2 years old and learning how to speak.
ARR, Retention rate, MAU, Seed round, take rate, PoC – not only did it teach me those acronyms I probably should’ve seen in Business School at some point; it taught me I can learn what I need for entrepreneurship and startups also elsewhere than in the big industry names. That’s why I’ve listed the three big reasons why people keep going to consulting before starting your own thing – and contrasted them to how you can get it through a VC internship:
- The industry overview: everyday, we see decks of startups challenging all kinds of markets. Be it gas stations, insurances, meat production or HR software, we have to research them and get their dynamics to understand whether this group of founders can disrupt the market. This allows to get an incredibly broad view on the business world, understanding the paradigms and, as a bonus, to get a bite of all the Startups’ creativity out there.
- The skills: working at a VC is a high paced, demanding job. Meetings with upper management (though they’re usually wearing t-shirts instead of suits), portfolio updates, market sizing exercises – it’s all part of the package. And yes, you’ll refine those cherished PowerPoint, Excel and Word skills you learned during your first internships / university (and no, you’ll never need the RANDBETWEEN Excel function).
- The network: people working at VCs are highly dependant on their networks, and constantly work on keeping their contacts fresh. You’ll learn from networking experts – plus, by just being there, you’ll understand at least the basic who-is-who of your regional Startup environment. And most importantly: your very colleagues are early stage investors – so if someday you want to start your own thing, you will always be able to get a perspective on your idea from an investors view (plus, they might like to invest?! (Probably not in your first idea 😉))
VC > “The Machinery”
You might now think: “Okay fine, so essentially I’m learning the same as in consulting or banking; let’s stick then to the original plan” – which would mean you haven’t gotten the point. That’s why I’ll do a bonus round and give you three reasons (McKinsey style lol) why it’s actually better to start off your career with a VC internship than in “The Machinery”:
- Uno: You’re going to be working in a very small, dynamic company, which means you’re going to take on responsibility quickly. Your analysis is important for the investment decision, your opinion is valuable, your ideas are heard (obviously to the extent they’re relevant, but hey, you’re learning, it’s fine). No long intro and large hierarchies; you are part of the team from day one, and your final vote counts as much as others’.
- Dos: You’re not working for a client who demands a 150 slide presentation to justify his initial opinion to the shareholders (ok, oversimplified but still, you get my point) – you’re working for the fund, for your portfolio companies and their clients. Your work has a real and palpable impact in the world! We don’t need filler slides for the appendix, we need you to focus on what you think is important, to create real value for everyone. No face time!
- Tres: You’re actually in the sexiest business environment out there – Startup style. You’ll be surprised how cool invoice factoring or bus ticketing companies can be while they’re disrupting the industry, and you’ll be working in the center of the ambient. Plus, if you ever want to start your own thing, you will want to know what the environment is like, what kind of players there are, and where to someday get the cheapest tables for your startup’s office (apparently, old doors do the job).
That’s why – apply!
It’s been a crazy ride in the last 4 months, and I’m happy to continue to be part of it for another 4. As you can probably tell, it wasn’t hard to convince me to stay longer, though I had to defer my Master’s degree and move up North for it (Jag bor I Stockholm nu). Worth it!
Now I know, it’s hard to get the VC internship, and I’m really lucky to have found it at Creandum – but if you are ready for it, and feel that “you don’t want to be another suit in a large corporate building”, then really, apply below. We got two internship positions, one in Stockholm and one in Berlin, starting in January – go the VC way.
http://creandum.com/internship