Despite many advances in industry transparency over the past ~10 years, much about the actual "jobs of a VC" remains locked inside firm/institutional knowledge and venture's apprenticeship model. With this new series we aim to change that. Our goal is to draw back the curtain on what the actual tasks are that VCs do day-to-day, how you can learn them, and ultimately what's required to succeed. We hope this series will be helpful both to anyone looking to break into the industry and to those who are already practicing, and also for entrepreneurs and consumers of venture capital to understand more about the motivations and activities of those across the table!
In this episode we start with sourcing: what it is, why it's important, who does it and when, and -- most importantly -- the brass tacks of where to look and how to do it.
Show Links:
Emergence Capital Investment Themes
M-Hacks (Univ of Michigan Hackathon)
Show Bookmarks:
[05:05] – Thoughts on early-stage VC
[07:12] – Why is sourcing important?
[12:11] – Sourcing strategies
[21:08] – Sourcing tactics (generally)
[25:25] – Sourcing tactics according to Andy Ratcliff
[41:24] – Breaking out of Systematic VC Sourcing
[52:45] – Who does what form of Sourcing?
People Worth Knowing:
Sun Tzu
Andy Ratcliff
Dan Valentine
Mike Moritz
Peter Thiel
Brian Singerman
Fred Wilson
Brad Burnham
Kathryn Gould
Greg Gottesman
Margit Wennmachers
Bill Gurley
Chetan Puttagunta
Peter Fenton
Turner Novak
Companies Mentioned in Episode:
SpaceX
Benchmark
Sequoia
Sysco
Madrona
Founder’s Fund
Paypal
Union Square Ventures
Tumblr
Foursquare
Zynga
Flickr
Foundation Capital
Rover
Andreessen Horowitz
OutCast
Backend Capital
Y-Combinator
VTS
Branch Metrics
Cameo
Gelt VC
Slack
Meritech
Episode Specific Terms:
Sourcing
Asset Class
Top Of The Funnel
Generalist (Outbound Driven) vs Specialist (Inbound Driven)
Referral Driven
Proprietary-Deal Driven
Investing Thesis
Thematic Investing
Network Effects
Product to Commodity
Paypal Mafia
Logo Shopping & Brand Halo
- Follow Acquired: @AcquiredFM, acquired.fm
- Let People Know You’re an LP on Twitter!
- Suggestions and Feedback: acquiredfm@gmail.com
What is ACQ2: The Acquired Interviews?
ACQ2 is Ben and David's conversations with expert founders and investors. Acquired the stories of great companies — and ACQ2 dives deeper into the lessons we can learn from them, often with the protagonists themselves.