8. Differentiating in VC: Part I

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Hey there,

Welcome to where I write about my journey from a stable Big Tech Software Engineering job to the wild and volatile world of Venture Capital.

NEW 🦹🏻💰 - Venture Cultist’s Corner

I’m experimenting with putting some of my favorite VC encounters or quirks in this section. If you like it or hate it, let me know what you think!

Observations

I’ve personally observed this affinity in VCs themselves and who they choose to invest in. Successful VCs are not normal people, and most have no desire to be. They optimize their time, their lives, and their social circles to support these abnormalities. There are some externalities as a result: they could be absentee parents, they could rely on illicit substances, they could optimize their health obsessively—all to dial up the intensity. Balance and VCs are like oil and water.

Actionable Tips for Founders

If you’re trying to raise funds as a founder, demonstrating this unhinged ferocity could be one way to differentiate yourself:

Rapid Responses: Respond to emails with break-neck speed.

Iterative Learning: Show you’re learning and iterating rapidly.

Cult of Personality: Build a cult of personality around yourself. Personify your absolute devotion to your mission, and the 💵💵💵 will follow.

Your Thoughts?

Have you noticed these traits in successful VCs or founders? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Differentiating as a SWE in VC: Part I

In my previous post, I alluded to the fact that I couldn’t compete in the same game as everyone else. If I wanted exceptional results, I had to pave my own path. One cornerstone that you can build your venture career on as a SWE is portfolio support.

Why?

VC is a game where only a few can win (due to Power Laws), and in an industry that the primary thing VCs are providing is a commodity (money), VCs must stand out.

They can do this by:

• Providing value to their portfolio companies through:

  • Services / Hustle: Support or guidance, doing research, or building something for the company.

  • Network: Helping the company find essential people in their network

• Brand Value & Reputation: A startup gains some prestige and legitimacy if invested in by a top tier VC.

By providing world class support to founders, a VC can improve all these facets. Interestingly, founder support also produces a virtuous cycle for the VC. Founders who feel personally loyal to a VC will refer them to other founders in their network. This word of mouth is one of the primary ways to discover a company before anyone else. Additionally, successful founder journeys improve a VCs reputation, increasing their network and brand value, and thus the number of founders who want to receive investment from them.

How?

As a SWE, you bring a unique set of skills and insights that can provide tremendous value to the portfolio founders. Here are several ways you can leverage your background to support these startups:

1. 🔍️ Consulting on technical architecture or technical decisions. Are you an expert on Domain Driven Design or Designing Data Intensive Applications. Your bird’s eye view will help founders avoid foot-guns and prepare themselves to scale. You can also coach engineers of portfolio companies. I first got to do this for The Firm before I even started my job 😅.

2. 🕸️ Leveraging your network to find great engineering talent. As a SWE, you may have a stronger network of engineers for portfolio founders to hire from. Most of the best SWEs I know are inundated with recruiter emails. You reaching out as an engineer typically provides signal to override the recruitment noise.

3. 🏗️ Building Products & Services to Empower Founders. You can ship software to help founders with things like networking, learning, data analysis, signal ingestion, reporting, and more!

4. 🦘 Jumping in on Technical Crisis or Crucial Moments. Sometimes you have to directly work on a portfolio companies tech stack and help them through a pivotal moment for the company. I’ve personally helped founders through things like debugging a memory leak or wrangling Kubernetes to horizontally scale a service.

As a SWE, you are typically the only person in your firm who can do these things - making you essential.

Are you a founder? How have your VCs added value to your company? Answer in the comments below!

Until next time!

Signing off and signing zero checks,

SWEdonym

PS: Love hearing from subscribers, send me an email with your thoughts or add a comment below on what you love, hate, or want more of.