Things I’ve Learned Working in VC — Part 1My first true exposure to the real world of venture capital began when I started my internship this past semester. It has been a great…
My first true exposure to the real world of venture capital began when I started my internship this past semester. It has been a great, enlightening experience to see how the process works — and I’d love to share some of those insights because I believe they are really helpful to anyone, does not matter what industry you are going into or what phase of life you are in, these things can be applied anywhere because business is everywhere.
I am going to share this in a bit of series (a couple of posts).
So here are my first two takeaways:
- Straightforwardness: I cannot begin to tell you how many times entrepreneurs have pitched their ventures and left VCs faces confused. Founders pitch their brilliant ideas using these fancy keynotes and animations and blocks of text — forgetting the whole point of the presentation: to explain their idea. Simpler = better. You can add all of the fireworks at a later time — in the beginning, just make sure that the person you are talking to knows what it is you are talking about!
- Timeliness: Working in due diligence, I have worked with a lot of different founders in finding information about their business model and where they see themselves in the future. This is great — I love hearing different stories about how companies get formed and so on. But, whether you like it or not, impressions are everything. And a great way to leave a disorganized impression is to show up late to a call or to deliver information late. This will, from the get go, set you back. And its not me being hard-hitting, rather its me, even subconsciously, being human. When you are trying to raise money, every little thing matters — so be on time!
These are my first two insights — I’m going to share more 🙂 Stay tuned for the next post about my experiences in Venture.
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Let’s continue this conversation
twitter — @jrdngonen
email — jordangonen@wustl.edu
By jordangonen on May 23, 2016.
Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.