Bijan Sabet, one of Boston’s most prominent and well-known investors and partner at Spark Capital, wrote a post today on his blog aimed at students thinking about a career in venture capital. He provides advice, which was spurred by an undergraduate student who approached him at Angel Bootcamp yesterday here in Boston (we covered the event, and you can read a recap of all the happenings here).
Bijan’s #1 piece of advice: get involved in the startup scene while at college.
He went on to offer practical tips on how to actually do this:
- Reach out to startups to see if you can offer any help — be it product feedback, knowledge about their industry, competitors or otherwise. This works to build relationships with founders at companies, something Bijan cites as “critical” to getting your foot in the door with any VC firm. He also notes you should seek out any student entrepreneurs on campus.
- Go to events with a fearless mindset, introducing yourself to VCs and Angels and networking like woah. “Get to know VCs and angel investors by doing exactly what he did yesterday,” Bijan offers.
- After connections are made, Bijan notes the next best thing to do is hit them up with a “thoughtful” email — perhaps about a market ripe for disruption, particular startups, student entrepreneurs at your college, or new products you believe will make a big impact. He suggests writing a blog post around these sorts of things are a great repository, but offers if you’d like to be more private to send you’ve tested or rationality around why you believe X or Y startups are going to win.
Bijan leaves his readers with this:
Its hard to get a job at a VC firm right out of college (or anytime frankly). Most likely the first stop will be at a tech company – either big or small. But you can always keep those connections you made during undergrad alive and well.
We encourage you to read his full post, thoughts, and advice here.
What other advice would you offer to students looking to work in venture capital? Let us know in the comments!
