
Ask HN: How do you start getting into VC? - hanemeth
With the lack of substantial capital and experience, how can someone learn more about venture capital? How did you get started?
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k00b
From @garrytan[1]

> Lots of college students reach out to me asking me about how to be a VC.

I tell them: be a founder first. The best VCs are chosen by founders based on
how much they can help bake the 10 year overnight success.

Power laws plus adverse selection equal bad returns. Be a founder.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1286307220796272643](https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1286307220796272643)

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jklein11
I read on the internet somewhere about a strategy to fake it until you make
it. Basically you would approach a number of startups acting as a VC LP. Talk
to early stage start ups and start to put together a round. Bring that round
to established VC firms and show them what you would do if you were backed by
them. It seems like a good way to burn some bridges in a tight knit community
but it might be worth a shot.

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raincom
Join as an intern, if you are an undergrad from Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
Stanford, etc. That is a path for those who are not well connected.

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gowld
What if you aren't well connected enough to be at those schools?

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trcollinson
To be a partner at a VC you have to have money and connections (though with
enough money, connections is a pretty easy problem to solve).

To be an intern/employee for a VC you need to have basically graduated from
one of the big business schools: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Kellogg, Wharton,
Booth... there are others but not many. If you go to one of these schools it's
relatively easy to get the connections you need.

If you want to be an intern/employee and you can't get to one of these schools
or don't want to, you need to specialize in something that VCs want. That
specialty is usually something data driven. Data Analytics is a really big
deal for VCs. If you can do that at an above Masters Level they may look at
you without a Masters Degree, business degree, or degree in anything at all.
Though it will still be a bit of an uphill battle. And honestly, you probably
won't get paid as well as if you took those data analytics skills to some
other company.

Unfortunately, if you want to do something other than Data Analytics for a VC,
you're kind of up a creek. Those big business schools are cranking out people
and they have good connections. They will take the job before you get a
chance.

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staticautomatic
Some VC's are generous with their time and happy to answer questions about all
sorts of things in a lot more detail than you'd expect. Patrick Mathieson
(Toba Capital) comes to mind as a great example.

~~~
ynac
Along those lines:

Both a friendly voice of the industry and a good place to get an inside/out
view of the VC industry:

[http://thedl.danielxli.com/add_subscriber](http://thedl.danielxli.com/add_subscriber)

