Breaking into venture capital: A brief playbook
“Venture capital is a tough, tough space to get into” is an understatement. Most applicants that apply to a fund get rejected without any facetime with the fund manager. Of the few that get the opportunity to interview, it is a journey that you commence with the odds stacked against you.
I recently broke into a VC fund, and these are four essential pointers that helped me and will help you too:
1. Get A Referral — Speak to any HR personnel, and they’ll tell you that they get inundated with the sheer quantum of applications they receive daily. Most of the CVs go into the ‘maybe someday’ stack. Therefore, as an applicant, you must have an edge that makes you stand out. The easiest (and most accessible way) is to get a referral from within the fund’s ecosystem. Referrals get higher weightage because you have already passed the initial screening, making the recruiter’s job easier. In most cases, a reference would undoubtedly get you an interview with the HR.
2. ‘Pitch’ Yourself — To be worthy of listening to startups pitch to you for a living, you must first pitch yourself — now, if you get an interview with a VC, congratulations! You’ve cleared the first hurdle. What happens next is decided by the impression you leave on the interviewer. Give them a reason to hire you over the rest. Dress well, talk with confidence, portray positive body language, and nail down your financial concepts. Show them what you bring to the table and why you are the person for the job. Pitch yourself and pitch yourself hard!
3. Do Your Research — Read up on everything you can about the fund — the team’s background, investment hypothesis, portfolio companies et al. Try to deep-dive into one or two portfolio companies that pique your interest and steer the conversation towards them when you interact with the interviewer. Also, keep yourself apprised of the latest deals in the VC space as this is a burning question for most interviewers.
4. Be Persistent — Keep following up till you get a response. Persistence always pays off. I reached out to my current boss via three different sources. One was a business partner; another was a referral working at the fund, and the final one was through an acquaintance from an angel network in Mumbai. It may sound excessive, but after having joined, I realized the real volume of applications a VC fund receives daily. To put this into context, we recently posted a job opening for an internship position on LinkedIn and received 600 applications in less than a week! If I hadn’t been unabatingly persistent in my pursuit, I almost certainly would’ve ended up on the ‘maybe someday’ pile like most other applicants.
These pointers are sure to improve your odds of breaking into a VC fund. If you pull through and get hired, congratulations! You’re now part of a select few and deserve a pat on the back for getting there.
Don’t celebrate for too long though, as this is just the first phase. Most funds start you off on a three-month internship to figure out fit. So, all this effort is to get your foot in the door, but that simply buys you an extended audition. The real test is yet to begin.
I wish you great luck in your endeavours.
