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#08 - Start Helping Founders Right Away & VC Jobs

Start Helping Founders Right Away

January 19, 2024


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START HELPING FOUNDERS RIGHT AWAY

Of all the assets you can have to break into VC, one of the most important ones is being referred to as 'someone very helpful' by entrepreneurs, other investors and peers.In fact, "Let me know how I can be helpful" is a sentence that VCs use very often. So often that it's become the biggest meme in the history of VC:

If you don't do it hypocritically and genuinely prove helpful to founders, they will remember you. It can become your superpower.While it is one of the hardest assets to build, it also generally requires no financial capital and is definitely worth trying out. Here are a few ways to do it:

Directly Helping Founders

Whether you have a lot of founders in your network (e.g. university friends, LinkedIn connections etc.) or you don't, you can always reach out to them (e.g. via cold emails) and find ways to make yourself helpful. Depending on your skills (whether you're good at sales, finance etc.), you could help founders:

  • Close deals

  • By making introductions to other investors

  • Prepare their fundraising materials

  • Train their pitch

  • With specific tasks such as accounting

While this will help you learn all about the startup-specific issues they will be facing, it will also help you build a great reputation in the founder world. Win-win.

Building An Asset Or Network That Will Make You Helpful To FoundersAnother way to give VCs the idea that they'll be invaluable to founders is to build an asset or network that will give you an edge over others when it comes to helping. For instance, you could be:

  • Working at an iconic tech company and running their alumni group or their angel syndicate

  • Running your university's startup society, accelerator or fund, and helping founders in the network

  • Running an event series or a conference

  • Running a community

  • Running a media outlet that gives you an edge (e.g. The Twenty Minute VC → can help founders raise money; "The 20 min Blockchain Engineer" → can help founders recruit in that space)

  • Being deep in a very local ecosystem

  • Working at a company like Product Hunt or in tech journalism (can help founders with distribution / PR)

Whatever approach you decide to take to help founders, the process will teach you about the importance of being able to sell yourself. Venture Capital is about seeing deals, picking deals and winning deals. As obvious as that sounds - if you think about it - that is also the definition of a sales job....

While most people see VC as sitting comfortably on the 'right' side of the table and having amazing founders pitch to you all the time and just having to pick the ones you like, it very often ends up being the opposite.

Since the number of VC funds out there is on the rise every single year - and founders are increasingly becoming selective as to who they want to work with - staying relevant and having a seat at the table for top-tier deal flow is a very difficult game. It implies pitching your fund in unique ways in every single conversation you have, constantly building a brand, and hustling to get the best entrepreneurs to engage with you and love everything about you and your fund.

💡 Helping founders before you land your dream VC job is a first way to train in 'selling yourself'. Here's a few resources that can help you understand what selling involves:

Venture Capital Jobs & Internship

  • 2024 Summer Associate Program  - VamosVentures | USA - Apply Here

  • Investment Lead - sequel | USA - Apply Here

  • Legal Intern - Plug and Play Tech Center | USA - Apply Here

  • VC Associate - Builder VC | SF - Apply Here

  • Investment Team - Orios Capital | India - Apply Here

  • Intern / Analyst - G2 Venture Partners | USA

  • Intern role - Apply Here

  • Analyst Role - apply here

  • VC Analyst - Superseed venture  | UK - Apply Here

  • Program Associate - Startup Sherpas | India - Apply Here

  • Venture Capital Intern - Planven Venture Capital | Switzerland - Apply Here

  • Visiting Analyst Early Stage - Red Alpine |  Switzerland  - Apply Here

  • VC Intern - Muse Captial | US - Apply Here

  • Marketing Manager - Struck Capital - USA - Apply Here

  • Senior Associate -B Capital | India - Apply Here

  • Investment Analyst - Berkah Venture | Indonesia - Apply Here

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→ Get Access to Curated VC CV/Resume Template - Download Here.

Must Read On Venture Capital

  • Why Asking For An NDA Make You Look Like An Amateur? Read More (Startups)

  • Why Your Startup Idea Isn’t Big Enough for Some VC ? Read More (Startups)

  • TAM - that's Totally A Made Up Number. Read More (Startups)

  • Don't track LTV/CAC; Instead track LTV/CACD, Why? Read More (Startups)

  • Steve Jobs: 'The Half-Truth of First-Mover Advantage' Read More (Startups)

  • One Type of Founder Investors Hate Funding Read More (Startups)

  • TAM - that's Totally A Made Up Number. Read More (Startups)

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