Note for VC Job Seekers

Hi,

I've got lots of emails asking for "advice" on VC recruiting. Every week, 5 to 10 of such requests pop up. My human nature wants me to be a nice guy and take these meetings/calls, but in reality it's just hard to manage. So I started to think about how I can help you in a meaningful way other than saying "You've got very impressive background. It'll be a matter of time before you find a job in the VC industry. Continue networking..."

Reflecting on my own VC recruiting experience, I found it was very effective to get a meeting when I offered to share my view on various sectors. Whether it was cold call or referral by a mutual contact, I e-mailed people a deck of slides that summarized my investment thesis. For example, one of these decks focused on battery and energy storage. It wasn't just a bunch of high level snapshot of the space with a couple bar charts that says the market would grow at x% CAGR. I actually took a deep dive, spoke to quite some vendors/buyers and Big Co's/start-ups, and got a whole bunch of first-hand insights that were actually unknown to the VCs that I spoke to. As people in the valley recognized my commitment and capability, they connected me with their colleagues and friends. Many of them are still close to me today.

My recruiting in 2009 was quite brutal. The post-2008 meltdown essentially caused many VC firms to freeze their hiring plan. Under such macro, my approach might not have been so "cost effective". If you can skip what I did above, it would be brilliant. But if you want to try something similar to what I did, here's what you can consider.

Choose one or two topics that makes most sense to you, and build a deck of investment thesis. Make sure it's high quality. People can recognize how much or how little effort you put in. A high quality thesis is a lot more compelling than a polished resume. In case you want my input on what should be included in investment thesis, here is typically what I want to tell people.

- Market size (SAM matters more than TAM), market trend, key drivers, what makes customer buy?

- Performance metrics, technology differentiation, go as deep as you can

- Competitive landscape

- What makes a start-up win?

- List of investment candidates

- Appendix (market report, customer interview scripts)

...

Feel free to send me the deck when it's ready. As we get to meet in person or talk on the phone, I will be glad to walk through your investment thesis and provide (constructive) feedbacks. I hope this value proposition makes sense. 

Best,

Mate, I C Bill

My Summer 2008 (Part 1) - orginally posted on July 27, 2008

Last week one of my learning teammate sent out an e-mail summarizing what she's been up to with her consulting summer internship. It's good to know she's doing great and also has learned a lot. More than half of the summer is gone; it's great to stay in touch with everybody. So here's the story I'm going to share with my learning teammates and all other friends.

This summer I decided to stay in Philly to work on a software start-up project. The work I'm doing now wasn't 100% what was planned before the summer began. But as expected, there's tons of work to do. So far the focus has been on product prototype development including design iteration and dialogs with potential customers for feedback.

I've done lots of work on my own, but I'm lucky enough to get help from my friends in Silicon Valley, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Philly. To speed up, I also learned to do some basic programming myself. It's really cool to see my codes do exactly what I want.

Yet for the most part on the non-technical side, I still have to figure out the answer myself. For example, recently the investigation of competitors' patent portfolio put my nerve through a roller-coaster ride.

Since intellectual properties are essential to any business, on my watch list there're a list of pending patent applications I've monitored closely. Two weeks ago I found one of them got its final rejection by the USPTO. Feeling a slight relief, I was curious enough to find out the cause for rejection. It turned out that an earlier issued patent was cited by the patent examiner to disapprove the patentability. As I read the earlier patent (unknown to me till that point), I became nervous because it claims some technical elements that could be critical to my product development. What next? Should we start thinking about licensing? How can we negotiate for a reasonable royalty rate? .... Fortunately soon I came to a great relief when I found this worrisome patent actually expired because the assignee didn't pay the maintenance fee! Aha!

Other than the above, I've adopted a new name for the business, filed filed corporation registration (LLC in Delaware) and contacted some investors and customers on the West Coast for my upcoming visit to San Francisco/Bay Area in August.

Not working in big corporation, I certainly don't have a chance for fancy retreats, city tours or other nice perks (which I don't even know what they are). I guess the only perk for Employee #0 (i.e., me) is extremly flexible hours. If I have to run some errands during the weekdays, I don't feel guilty to go. If I feel like working some more after a get-together with friends, I feel quite happy to stay up till past 2 am - I found myself full of motivation.

I split my time between home and the office provided by the Wharton Venture Initiation Program. Whenever I work at home, it takes me less than 5 seconds to "commute", i.e., from bed to desk. But in reality it usually takes me half an hour to wake up - not sure if this is a sign for lack of self-motivation....

I'd love to work non-stop, but I've tried not to lose too much work-life balance. I signed up for the student membership at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and I've joined guided tours including "Rhythms of India: The Art of Nandalal Bose" and French portraits. Last Friday evening my friends at Penn and I went to a free concert performed by Philadelphia Orchestra. It was phenomenal!

Hmmm, what else? Well, I shouldn't forget I've continued learning to dance Salsa. I took the weekly Salsa lesson last semester. But without practice, I forgot 95%, if not more! So this summer I practice every week with a friend whom I met at the class. With her very helpful feedback (like how to lead), I think I've made quite some progress, compared with last semester. Now I feel great!! :D

Entrepreneurial Gatherings in Silicon Valley (Originally posted on Aug 11, 2008)

Since I came to the Bay Area last week, I've attended 3 networking events for start-up entrepreneurs. Even though I've heard many times about the entrepreneurial environment in Silicon Valley, it's really cool to witness such a high concentration of entrepreneurial gatherings and to meet many passionate entrepreneurs.

Aug 6. SF New Tech: "Widgets" (Product Demo)
Take-aways: 1) a platform technology has great potential; 2) an effective business model is still needed for popular widget platform providers.

Aug 7. Silicon Valley Association of Software Entrepreneur : "Raising Capital for Early Stage Technology Start-ups (Panel)."
Take-aways: Nothing dramatically new, but nice to meet many people during the social hour.

Aug 11. FountainBlue's High Tech Entrepreneurs' Forum: "Selling SAAS to the Enterprise."
The main event was a talk on SaaS sales aided by a panel of sales gurus. One of the panelists pointed out that no top business schools offer courses on sales, which, however, is such an essential skill to any company. I totally agree with him. Last fall, I went to MIT Sloan to participate in its MBA Sales Competition. It was an eye-opening experience. I definitely learned a lot, and I want to go again this fall.

The event tonight was held at a law firm. When I was about to leave, I bumped into an attoreny who was working late. I couldn't help asking him a burning question. He actually practices in the area specifically related to my question. The 10-min chat helped me greatly. Later I bought a bottle of Chardonnay to celebrate my joy.

Hello Cali! (Originally posted on Aug 5, 2008)

Yesterday I flew to San Jose. I'll stay here till next Friday. The San Francisco Bay Area is pretty much the only place where I want to be after I finish my MBA next May. I love the start-up environment so much that the air even smells entrepreneurial to me.

I came here for several reasons. I'll attend several start-up networking events to see more what the community is like. Several meeting were scheduled with venture capital investors to talk about my venture development for their feedback. Although my start-up project is too early for VC investment at this point, I want to start building relationships now. And certainly I want to catch up with some friends whom I haven't seen for a while.

I'm staying at a classmate's place in Belmont. The night sky is beautiful!

VCIC - It's all about team work! (Originally posted on 11/23/08)

Yesterday my team won the Wharton Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC)! We'll present Wharton to compete at the regional VCIC at MIT Sloan next March. Yay! :o)

We had 2 rounds. In the 1st round, we were given a business plan from a medical device start-up to assess. The deliverable included an executive summary (including the due diligence and investment decision) and a term sheet. Even if we decided the business wasn't VC-fundable, we would still submit a term sheet. In the 2nd round, we had 4 business plans ranging from mobile marketing/networking, solar energy to healthcare IT. In addition, we had the chance to hear the pitches given by each entrepreneur who provided the business plan. In the end, each team didn't only need to turn in the executive summary and term sheet but also did a presentation in front of the judges and other audiences (5-minute presentation and 10-minute Q&A).

As we celebrated the success, we all felt great about the effectiveness of our team work. To begin with, we put a great effort on building a team with complimentary skills and ended up with a McKinsey consultant, an MD candidate, a software guru, a healthcare expert and a material/catalysis Ph.D. and inventor. Before the 2nd round took place, we broke down the available time to major stages and shared the workload including the due diligence, valuation, term sheet, presentation, etc. The team was very collaborative. Everybody worked very hard. Different opinions were exchanged in a very constructive way. The team work was so smooth that it definitely contributed greatly to our winning.

Other than sharing the due diligence, I drafted the term sheet. Personally I'm quite happy with what I was able to do this time, because a year ago I had no idea about the subtlety in those clauses like anti-dilution, liquidation preference, etc. and now I can draft a term sheet acceptable to the VC judges. I guess my tuition didn't completely go to the sink. :o)

Sloan Sales Competition (Originally posted on 11/1/08)

On October 18, two of my classmates and I participated in the final phase of the MIT Sloan International MBA Sales Competition.

This year the competition consisted of two phases. The first and screening phase was a 5-minute pitch on the phone to sell the private wealth management service of a bank to a wealthy family business owner in his succession planning. 3 top contestants from each school were qualified for the final phase at Sloan. The second and final phase included two rounds.

Round 1 was a one-on-one pitch to sell "American Express card service to a successful furniture store's founder and CEO who had been reluctant to adopt any card service". 15 minutes and no more. I wasn't quite happy with my own performance, but my judge, a Sloan alumnus who founded the Sales Club 4 years ago and currently works at Google, was very nice and gave me very insightful feedback.

Round 2 was a group pitch to sell "Basho Technologies' salesforce management software to Google". The team stayed up late the previous night to prepare for a deck and took the time to practice before the pitch. We played the roles of CEO, CTO and Sales Manager, while 3 judges played Google's CTO, CFO and Country Head of Sales. We got lots of questions from the judges including several which we didn't anticipate. But to our great joy, we did quite well and the group pitch was ranked No. 2 out of the 11 participating schools.

In the end, a 2nd year from Berkeley/Haas stood out of about 70 contestants from 11 business schools and won the championship (including a $3,000 cash prize). I'm quite happy with my performance, as my total score was ranked No. 5.

It was another great learning experience, and it was a lot of fun to meet students from other schools. Many thanks to the student organizers at Sloan. They did a fantastic job!

MIT Sloan Sales Competition (Originally Posted on 9/27/08)

I just finished the preliminary round of the MIT Sloan Sales Competition. I scored 95 points (presumably out of 100). :P Hopefully I can make it to the final round scheduled on October 18.

Actually I participated in the same competition last year. It was such a great learning experience that I started to appreciate selling a lot more. No matter how well the market research is done, and no matter how elegantly the financial modeling is done, no products or services turn into value until they're sold. Selling is never done by sales people alone. But ironically, selling isn't taught at any top business schools. I'm glad Sloan has a strong initiative to build the sales skill among MBA students. The one-day competition was very well organized. Other than the competition, they've also got a Sales Club as well as a Sales Conference. Kudos to Sloan!

Last year, each contestant went through 3 rounds of competitions, each of which had something to sell, including server virtualization, solar panel and online community membership. In each round, it was a one-on-one sales pitch with a judge who played the role as customer. The judge is a seasoned sales manager or director for some company. The learning experience started right after the pitch, when a written feedback was provided. Understanding customer needs and building rapport with them are critical to the success in sales. Simply dumping the product features on the table won't go far. My judge's feedback was candid, practical and insightful. I was able to apply the learning instantly in the next round, which was reflected by my increased scores from Rd 1 to Rd3.

At the end, I was far away from winning any prize. (I didn't expect myself to win anything, anyway. One of my cohort mates eventually advanced to the National MBA Sales Competition and won the championship!) But it was a fabulous learning experience. Back when the school started, I blocked my calendar according to the competition's agenda this year.

Also, I persuaded several classmates to join the competition. Maybe a proof of my improved sales skill? :o)