Understanding the Power of Your Perspective in Early-Stage VC
Over the past twenty years or so, venture capital has become a more desirable career path for many ambitious young people. Given the huge success of once VC-backed startups that have now become hallmarks of our daily lives (think: Google, Amazon, Spotify, Airbnb, and Facebook), it’s not a surprise that this industry has caught the eyes of many early or mid-career professionals.
After the historic record of $130 billion in U.S. VC investments made in 2019 and given recent changes in the ecosystem (the growing presence of nontraditional investors, changes in fund structures, etc.), the pipeline for aspiring VCs will continue to grow. That said, no matter what your professional and personal background entails — you must understand what your unique perspective is and the value that it can bring to the investment process.
How I Became Interested in VC
Before joining Chingona Ventures, I worked in two startups for five years across several functions such as sales, client strategy, and most recently, product marketing. Both companies had successful exits, so I became interested in learning more about how these opportunities were created and who helped to provide the resources and support for these startups during their infancy.
This quarter, I gained new skills and knowledge that were essential for the Associate role, but I also learned how my previous experiences can work together with these new competencies, creating my unique perspective as an aspiring investor.
Developing Your Powerful Perspective
Here are three questions to empower you to discover your distinctive point-of-view:
- How can my previous experiences be leveraged for this role and the firm?
Don’t simply lean on your resume for this question. Instead, consider how specific projects, cases, and even team dynamics have influenced your thought process or working style. Then, view those experiences through the lens of the associate role and the goals of the firm. With those observations in mind, predict specific opportunities when your perspective will add context-specific value. For example, I was introduced to a company that created an EdTech platform for managing apprenticeship programs within fast-growing companies. As a former middle-school teacher who’s also worked in a corporate EdTech startup, I was well-suited to assess the product’s effectiveness in adult pedagogy for the end-user and the analytics offerings for the core administrator.
2. How can my strengths be applied in this role and be valuable to the firm?
At a glance, this question can be easily confused with the previous question. However, this question requires self-reflection to determine how your capabilities can show up in your day-to-day responsibilities and the work environment. I enjoy structure, but I’m also wired to identify problems or gaps in a process. During process improvement, I ensure the new version is constructed in a meaningful and scalable way for frequent use. When you’re aware of your strengths, you are better prepared to utilize them more often, leading to more value creation as well. In a fast-paced environment, leaning into my strengths empowered me to lead or support additional projects that were important to the firm’s goals such as scaling the associate onboarding and transition process in addition to participating in the investment process.
3. Which companies or industries are appealing to me and why?
When working in VC, developing expertise and publishing thought leadership content is pivotal because it establishes credibility and trust from founders as well as other investors. Therefore, it’s important to keep track of the companies and industries that naturally capture your interest. Once you’ve created a shortlist, spend some time asking yourself why you’re interested in those companies or industries. With these insights in mind, you can begin to expand your knowledge through intentional research, following existing thought and market leaders, and learning about emerging trends in the space. Here’s when the magic happens: as you continue to see more pitches, learn about the markets, and the target customers, you’ll begin to cultivate your viewpoint on what’s next, what’s missing, or the real opportunity for investing in the space. So far, I’ve primarily been interested in companies within the Future of Learning, Future of Work, and FinTech spaces.
Revisit these questions as often as you’d like but I found it helpful to reflect weekly over the past 10 weeks.
The Process of Applying Your Perspective
My background and strengths enabled me to have a particular perspective, but I had to focus on learning what makes my viewpoint unique, understanding how it can be valuable, and effectively identifying the opportunities where it could create the most value. Whether I was assessing a potential deal submission or evaluating the user experience of a product, the power of my perspective resulted in my willingness to use it and learn how to best leverage it for real-time usefulness.
