breaking into VC early-career
taste, community, building
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about getting involved in VC while in college/early grad. Thought it would be easiest to just brain-dump it all here and have everything in one place :).
There are already a lot of more in-depth guides that exist (which I’ll link below at the end of this post) but I thought I’d focus specifically on some tangible steps that worked for me.
If you’re new here, I’m Mathurah, a design engineer at Netflix, I live in San Francisco, and I’m currently a scout at Bain Capital Ventures. I just graduated from Waterloo in Systems Design Engineering last summer, and I got involved in VC halfway through university!
What is VC
Venture Capitalists are investors who provide funding to private companies. There are different stages, the earliest being pre-seed, seed, and then Series A and beyond. Venture funds are funded by Limited Partners (LPs), and it’s the investor’s role in the fund to find the next big startup and allocate those funds to promising projects.
If the startup survives and exits, the investor provides those returns back to their LPs and takes a small cut (carry). Investors spend time sourcing promising companies, conduct due diligence on the ones they meet with to decide if they’re a good fit, and partner with the company as they grow to provide any support on things they can from hiring, strategy, GTM, and more.
Getting involved in venture
Everything you do boils down to your ability to help reach the goals above.
Sourcing companies - do you have access to a network or have you built a community of future founders/current founders you could potentially invest in?
Identifying promising companies to invest in - do you have a strong sense of taste in identifying new trends, interesting problems to solve, and companies to keep your eyes on?
Conducting due diligence - do you have a particular background in a certain space to evaluate company pitches, or the ability to gather research and gain conviction on a decision on whether to fund a company or not?
Supporting the company throughout its journey - do you have any hard skills in a particular area you can leverage? For example, if you have a strong design/product sense, you could support with early product strategy or design critiques. If your wedge is in sales GTM, you can help source their early customers. If you have a strong network, you can send them early hires.
It’s kind of a chicken-and-egg problem because some of the ways to demonstrate these skills require the opportunity to apply them, so you have to find ways to create those opportunities for yourself before you’re given permission to do so. Here are some takeaways from my journey navigating venture:
Start where initiative is the only requirement
I remember applying to a ton of student VC clubs in my first and second year in college and not getting into any of them. The best thing to do when getting started doing things in which the only barrier to entry is initiative, like volunteering at your school’s startup incubator for example, or any startup-related conferences.
The opportunity that I did that really changed my trajectory was volunteering with Envision Accelerator, a student-run accelerator where we gave non-dilutive grants to underrepresented founders, an opportunity a friend tagged me in on X.
Running an accelerator exposed me to all different parts of venture, from sourcing founders to apply, running interviews to figure out which companies should join the cohort, and then coming up with helpful programming + connections to investors as the founders work on building their companies and eventually raising. It also expanded my network to meet more people from all over, since the team and accelerator were school-agnostic, and eventually enabled me to meet more VCs in the industry. A friend from Envision connected me to their friend who knew someone at Cowboy Ventures who was hiring for a special projects intern, which got me my first job with a VC firm.
Find a mentor and do whatever work it takes to learn and get exposed
Robby at Cowboy Ventures was initially hiring an intern to edit the Open Source start-up podcast. My only real podcast editing experience was starting a podcast with some friends over the pandemic and editing clips on iMovie, but I wanted to get my foot in the door in whatever way possible. The work wasn’t particularly glamorous - I didn’t realize how much time it took to edit a few clips - and I was balancing it while working as a product engineer at a startup in SF.
It was honestly so worth it though - after I put in the work there and helped source a replacement editor for the podcast, I ended up transitioning to help with other VC-related work from joining more pitch calls, supporting research on trends in developer tools, and also helping evangelize Modern Angels, a community of 400+ women angel operators from working on some of our branding, website, automations, and planning our first IRL kick-off event in 2022.
VC is such a people-focused industry, and having someone who can vouch for you goes such a long way. If there’s any lesson here, I think grunt work is very well worth it if it helps open doors and build relationships.
I love this quote that Leigh Marie shared a while back:
“If you are offered a seat on a rocket ship, take the seat and have faith in your abilities to transition to your ideal seat on the rocket ship over time”.
The context of this advice was mostly towards startups/early roles but I think applies universally here as well - if you’re early in career and don’t have much experience, do what you can to work with inspiring people (no matter what the scope of work is) because you will absorb so so much, and it will pay off in the long run.
Venture is such a people-reliant business, and it’s incredibly helpful to have people who can vouch for you.
One way to get started is to look up different VCs you admire - you can even start by looking them up on Twitter or different VC firm websites. If you live in the same city you could see if they want to grab coffee (which is part of their job!) or keep on the lookout for different job or internship opportunities to work with them.
*I will caveat to be mindful about opportunities in this bucket! I’ve mostly had positive experiences and think it pays off early in career but make sure to work with people who will uplift you and give you a chance to grow and contribute. After you’ve built up some experience you can be more picky about the roles you take on.
Develop a wedge in a hard skill
Hone the skills you already have and put the time in to develop a hard skill. The reason why everyone says “be an operator first, and then a vc” is because there are tangible learnings that come from doing the thing first before being in a position to advise and support other founders. It doesn’t mean you can’t be successful as a junior going straight into venture, but having a concrete skill set—whether in engineering, design, GTM, or another area—makes it much easier for founders to take you seriously and want to work with you.
For me, a lot of the dots connected through my background in creative engineering, with experiences spanning product engineering, design, storytelling, and community building. These experiences shape a lot about how I think about delightful product experiences and rallying a community behind a mission.
Figure out what that wedge is for you - what you’d want to be known for and what support you can provide to others.
Foster an opinion of what you think the future will look like
Almost all my conversations with other VCs are about what companies I’m seeing, new technologies to keep a watch out on, or about interesting people I come across. Finding ways to stay up to date on new tools and exposing yourself to new ideas can help you develop a strong perspective on where things are headed. The most iconic investors are the ones that are highly opinionated - they have strong bets and often make them before anyone else does.
Look for opportunities to articulate these perspectives and share them with other people. Market maps are a very classic example of synthesizing your thinking around a space, breaking down an ambiguous thesis, and finding companies it applies to in the real world. Some examples of market maps include: Meagan Loyst on Paid Communities, a16z’s AI for Creative Content, Grace Isford’s NYC AI Market map.
Podcasts are a great way to stay up to date - 20VC, acquired etc. I also like the Best One Yet for general business news. I really love the releases from Stripe Press - where they cover a lot of past tech innovations and history but it’s helpful to see how those can build connections to the future.
This isn’t something you have to do alone or need to formalize—it's also a fun activity you can do with friends. For example, some friends in SF host a monthly startup paper reading series, where we pick a different startup each month, read articles about the company, and discuss where they're heading. It’s a great way to build your due diligence muscle and perspective in a low-stakes setting,
Build a body of work in public to communicate that vision
I’ve been thinking a lot about the internet being a great equalizer. In an industry like venture where status and traditional signals still play a role (ex. what school you’ve gone to, companies you’ve worked at), building a proof of work can help level the playing field. Whether it’s building personal projects, sharing your thoughts on those trends you’ve been seeing, you’ll develop a body of work over time that serves as evidence for your credibility.
I also find it incredibly true that you “attract what you put out”. If you want to meet interesting people, you have to do interesting things yourself for them to want to talk to you. The first investment I did as part of a scout program actually came out of a blog post I published on AI and Creative tools - they reached out because what they were building aligned a lot with the thesis I shared. Sharing your work online also creates a lot of serendipitous opportunities to meet people that wouldn’t have existed otherwise - from opening the doors to meeting with founders and other VCs in the space.
Find ways to bring interesting & curious people together
As I said above, everything in venture ultimately ties back to deal flow. While not everyone in VC has to be a “community person”, often having a strong network can make up for a lack in experience, especially early in your career. My mindset in my 20s are relationship-maxxing - these are truly the times to surround yourself with your future co-conspirators, best friends, future investors, and people that push you to be the best in your craft.
For me, organizing events has been a fun way to do exactly that. Many of the events I’ve helped plan stemmed from a personal desire for a community I’ve always wanted but didn’t yet exist - so I just gathered some friends and made it happen. The personal computing hackathon came out of a desire to bring people together to build cozy, small tech projects. Rabbitholeathon was about carving time to explore curiosities for a weekend. And now, Women Who Lift is my way of meeting other women in tech while being in a supportive workout environment.
Most of these events started as things I simply wanted to do regardless—but along the way, VCs noticed their value. After I shared about these event ideas on X, some VCs reached out about sponsoring or supporting future events, seeing the potential in these niche communities. Once you’ve hosted events a few times you build a track record and people are naturally excited about partnering with you.
My key takeaway is leaning into what genuinely excites you and what you’d want to be a part of. If you build spaces that attract thoughtful, ambitious people, opportunities will follow naturally.
Use all of these experiences to get access to VC programs
By combining all these experiences - taking initiative, developing a hard skill, fostering a strong perspective, building a body of work in public, you position yourself for different venture-adjacent opportunities, whether it’s joining undergrad vc fellowships, joining a vc firm, becoming a scout, or angel.
If you’re an undergrad student, you can look into some of the student VC programs from Neo Scholars, KP fellows, Thrive Capital fellowship, 8VC, Dorm Room Fund, Contrary Capital, Harlem Capital - they widen your network immensely and have a pipeline for internships at their portfolio companies. (If I’ve missed any others, let me know and I’ll update this list!)
Venture is a long-game
Everything truly compounds over time - there’s no single formula for breaking into VC, and everyone’s journey is unique to them. It’s a culmination of years of building relationships, being curious, and taking small steps toward developing your point of view and proof of work. Eventually, the dots will connect and doors will open if you trust yourself.
I will say my journey in VC is also only the beginning - I have a long way to go if I want to continue going down this path, but wanted to share some of the learnings I’ve had so far. In typical VC fashion “I hope this was helpful” and let me know if you have any questions :)
I might do a part two on this blog post specifically talking about scout programs, how they work, and how to get involved if people are interested - let me know!
Special thanks to Mackenzie Derival and Jacky Huang for their feedback on this piece.
Resources
As promised, here are some more in-depth and tactical guides on VC recruiting! If there are any other ones I can keep updating this list :)
OMG I've been waiting for this post so excited rn
Great piece!! thank you for letting me get an early sneak peak! <3