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How to get a job in Venture Capital
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How to get a job in Venture Capital

The hardest seats to get in the world are the ones on the tip of a rocket ship and in venture capital, and that kind of makes sense since both of these careers can take you to the moon.

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TL;DR: You can spend $250,000 getting an MBA or you can make $250,000 working for me for four years and break into VC.

So how does one get a job in venture capital? Simple, there are four ways:

  1. Have millions of dollars and set up your own venture firm.
  2. After taking your startup public or selling it for hundreds of millions, get invited to join a venture firm.
  3. Invest ~$250,000 and four years in a top-tier business school like Stanford, Harvard or Wharton, and start climbing the venture career ladder.
  4. Get paid $50,000 for 18 months as a Researcher for me, then $60,000 as an Analyst/Associate for 18 months, and finally $70,000 for 12 months as a Senior Analyst/Principal. After four years, you've made ~$250k, and you work for my investment company as an Associate or Principal.

If you qualify for the first three routes, congratulations, and I look forward to working with you on a deal in the near future!

If you want to take door number four...

Here is how to "get the seat" investing with me, the guy who wrote the book on angel investing (literally), and who invested in Uber, Robinhood, and Calm.com in "year zero."

I have two companies (Inside.com and LAUNCH), and both put you on this track.

You can apply for one of these three positions at Inside.com (application at jobs.inside.com):

  1. Researcher: write newsletters and assist in producing events under the tutelage of Analysts and Senior Analysts.
  2. Analyst: write newsletters, manage researchers, and produce and host events.
  3. Senior Analyst: manage multiple newsletters, events, researchers, and analysts.

You can also apply to be a researcher at LAUNCH (application at the bottom of this page):

  1. Researcher: find and reach out to emerging startups under the tutelage of our Associates, Managing Directors, and me for 18 months. {we are hiring for this position!}
  2. Associate: find, reach out to, and do introductory calls with founders of emerging startups for two to four years. {we are not hiring for this position at this time}
  3. Principal: Do everything above, plus work with our portfolio of 300+ startups to grow their startups for two to four years. {we are not hiring for this position at this time}
  4. Managing Director: Do everything above and manage one of our channels (i.e. LAUNCH Accelerator, TheSyndicate.com). {we are not hiring for this position at this time}

What do you need to qualify for these jobs?

  1. You should be hard working: In these positions, you should expect to work 50-60 hours a week on your primary job responsibilities while spending additional time investing in your skill stack, building your network, and educating yourself (think: reading books, listening to podcasts, taking courses).
  2. You must be inspired to learn new skills constantly & without supervision: the executives who move up quickly are the ones who can learn new tools and techniques without management. So, if you've never used a piece of SaaS software before (SLACK, Notion, zendesk, Asana, Carta, Odoo, etc.) or deployed a business technique (growth hacking, CRM, content marketing, event production, etc.), you can spend a Saturday morning listening to podcasts, reading manuals, and watching YouTube videos until you're able to not only perform these tasks but also teach them to others.
  3. You should be an adult who takes ownership of projects: We operate under the "freedom and responsibility" philosophy pioneered by Netflix. We will not manage or micromanage you, you will manage yourself with our simple SOD, EOD, & EOW system.

We're hiring a dozen researchers in 2021.

Here are some things you can do to give yourself an edge in "getting the seat" with us, and other firms:

  1. READ ALL THE BOOKS: Figure out what books founders and VCs are reading and read those.
  2. LISTEN TO ALL THE PODCASTS: Figure out what podcasts founders and VCs are listening to and listen to those. Bonus points: write podcast notes based on them and publish them.
  3. CREATE, DON'T WAIT: Start your newsletter, blog, events, community, and podcast about a topic you love. If you're obsessed with robotics, then why haven't you started your blog, Twitter handle, TikTok, Instagram, newsletter, or YouTube channel about startups in the robotics space? Are you waiting for permission? If so, don't! Just do it.

If you have any questions after reading this, well, go find an answer on Google. If you're not self-sufficient enough to figure out what to do next, we can't help you. :-)

Apply!

If you're ready to do hard work you can apply with a three-minute (and not a second more) video about why you want the seat and what skills separate you from the hundreds of folks competing with you for it.

If you have a three-minute video made, you can fill out this 10 question form in under 20 minutes. Here are the questions we are going to ask you in this form.

  1. What three books, in ranked order, have inspired and informed you the most and how?
  2. What three podcasts have you learned the most from?
  3. What are your top three skill sets and how did you learn them?

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