Stepping into VC — internship retrospective
I joined SquareOne as an intern in August after spending two amazing years at Collectiv Food (a London-based food/logistics tech startup). Although this was my first step into VC, I was lucky to have some surface awareness of how this curious world functions, having worked on two fundraises at Collectiv. Before my final round interview with SquareOne, I dissected each of the blog posts by previous interns — and the more I read, the more excited yet nervous I got for that interview. Here I am, six months later, fortunate for it to be my turn to write about a highly positive experience and show a big appreciation to this mega team.
With SquareOne you hit the ground running
From day one, you are thrown into action — a quick onboarding, a meeting with the whole team, and getting up to speed with everything that’s going on with the portfolio. From day two, you hit the ground running, and this pace continues until, before you know it, it is already your final day. I can echo what many previous interns have said: This is a superstar team of passionate, personable, inspiring, and fun people, each bringing unique knowledge and perspective to every discussion. I am grateful for the extensive mentorship from each of them.
My typical days involved everything from deal sourcing (yes, lots of Linkedin stalking), taking first calls with founders, doing market research, and forming theses on certain industries. When potential deals started to progress into follow-up calls and due diligence, I helped the team on everything from competitor analysis to market sizing, gathering customer references, and preparing the investment memos. On the portfolio management side, I helped founders with finding potential candidates for various positions, as well as preparing them for subsequent fundraises.
Know what you don’t know
What I enjoyed most about being in an early-stage VC is the diversity of topics, products, and founders you get to see every day. You get to meet the smartest people in a field, get inspired by their visions, and form a view on the potential success they could have. You also learn to deal with the many unknowns, or at least appreciate them, and you also quickly realise that you’ll be wrong on a lot of things.
Main takeaways/tips for future interns
- It can seem overwhelming at the start — but you’ll realise it’s totally normal to jump through five different industries in one day. You don’t need to (and should not) pretend that you’re an expert in some deep tech field after listening to one podcast and reading two blog posts in the hour before a founder call. Instead, stay curious and humble.
- Given that you won’t be the expert on the call, it helps to learn to ask the right questions in the first calls with founders — it is key to be an efficient filter. You need to find out enough info to know whether the opportunity would be the right fit for the fund and worthwhile follow-up calls and involving further team members.
- Use the time to find industries that peak your interest — especially if you’re considering joining a startup afterwards, this is a perfect platform from which you can see the most exciting trends, and actually get intros to the teams working on them.
- Get to know lots of people: Through each conversation, you’ll learn more about a cool new technology or a problem that needs solving — and you might figure out more about your own interests. Go to the events, enjoy the free pizza and beer, too!
In a short time, you’ll be able to learn a lot, even if you think you know some things about VC already (as I thought I did) — essentially, you’re learning and executing in express mode every day 🙂. Whether you want to start a career in VC, or find the next industry/trend to build or join a startup in — if you’ve read this far, then you’re in the right place, and SquareOne will set you up strong.
As for my next move, I’ll be continuing in VC, albeit slightly later-stage investing — joining Eurazeo’s venture team in London from January.
Tobias R-D
Hit me up: www.linkedin.com/in/treimanndubbers
