My First Six Months in Venture Capital

I knew that I wanted to break into venture capital while I was still an undergrad. Before graduating, I had spent some time sourcing for an accelerator for a couple of summers, and those experiences offered me a glimpse into the life of early-stage venture capital. I quickly realized that I really enjoyed interacting with people that questioned the status quo, and evaluating these companies became something that I decided I wanted to get better at.

I began reading articles in TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and The Verge to stay on top of tech trends shaping different industries, stalked every notable VC with a digital presence (my current list of blogs I follow is 100+), and even took a crack at drafting investment memos from scratch. By the time senior year rolled around, I thought that I was in a good position to test my luck and break into venture.

Looking back, I was naive to say the least.

There isn’t a standard template to breaking into venture, but I would advise against the cold email method. In total, from August 2018 until March 2019, I sent over 750 personally crafted emails to whoever I could find working in VC. It didn’t matter if they were an associate or a managing partner; as long as I could scrape the web for an email, I would sent it. Although I am now knowledgable enough to realize that this was a poor way to go about finding a job, I will say that the scrappiness is something most VCs admire in analysts and associates.