EVCA Newsletter #1
Welcome to EVCA’s first newsletter! EVCA is a non-profit dedicated to supporting the emerging (pre-partner) venture capital community. Twice a month, we’ll be sharing investor features, news, job postings, financing announcements, and asks from the EVCA community.
I know what you’re thinking - not another venture newsletter. Whether you’re a VC, entrepreneur, or student - in the attention economy - every minute of your time is increasingly more valuable. As a newsletter editor, i.e. information curator, my job is to highlight unique and thought-provoking content.
Due to EVCA’s reach, now at ~560 members across six major cities, I have the privilege of meeting a smorgasbord of talented investors. Some of the most thoughtful VCs are not the loudest and many of the best venture career opportunities are not widely publicized.
In this newsletter, I’ll amplify these voices and opportunities, giving the reader an inside look into what’s top of mind for our community.
I’ve enlisted the help of Jessica Li at Soma Capital to join me in this journey. Jessica is a phenomenal writer and thoughtful information curator, and I’m honored that she agreed to do this with me.
We hope you enjoy -
What We’re Reading this Week
On the topic of crafting a cold email, How to Write a Great Cold Email That Will Actually Get a Response by Auren Hoffman
If Joe Exotic used a Notion account, Joe Exotic’s Notion Set-up by Khe Hy
During this COVID-19-induced period of introspection, The Day You Decided to Take the Leap by Lawrence Yeo
The shortfalls of feedback and how to get into the excellence business, The Feedback Fallacy by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, Harvard Business Review
Meme of the Week
With the S&P 500 pushing 3,000 this week:
Venture Jobs & Internships
Senior Associate @ PayPal Ventures in San Francisco
Investment Associate @ Soma Capital in San Francisco
Investment Associate @ Bain Capital Ventures in New York City
Summer Intern @ T Fund in San Francisco
Summer Intern @ Baidu Ventures in San Francisco
Featured Investors
Harris Stolzenberg
I am an Associate at Pear. Before joining the team, I was an investment banker and the Chief of Staff at a startup. I am very interested in starting my own company one day, and figured there was no better place to learn than at a VC firm known for helping startups go from 0 to 1. At Pear, I focus on finding the next great student founders. I help run Pear Competition and am passionate about meeting and supporting founders in the earliest days of their entrepreneurial pursuits.
Outside of work, I like to stay active. If the quarantine ever ends, I hope to muster up the courage to get an Equinox membership. A South Florida native, I am a fan of warm weather and an even bigger fan of the Miami Dolphins (unfortunately). This was particularly problematic while I was at MIT as I was often very cold and surrounded by Patriots fans. My proudest moment was crossing the finish line at the 2014 Boston Marathon, and raising money for the victims of the bombings in the process.
Rachel Star
I focus on early stage consumer investments at Unusual Ventures. While I just recently joined the Unusual team, I’m not new to early stage investing – I started my investing career at Shasta Ventures. Prior to VC, I worked in Corporate Strategy at Nordstrom Inc and in the Consumer & Retail practice at McKinsey & Co. I have a degree in Manufacturing Engineering from Northwestern University.
How do you stay connected with and cultivate relationships with co-investors over time?
Harris: I'm currently only four months into my VC career so I've done more connecting than cultivating so far. I've probably had about ~25 conversations with other investors, all thanks to the EVCA Slack channel. These conversations have certainly helped me get up to speed but I've more enjoyed just getting to know other investors. I think people are more willing to go the extra mile for you if there's a meaningful personal connection involved. I'm looking forward to eventually getting to meet up with people in person again and building relationships over time.
Rachel: This is a really important question – especially now that we are all working from home. I think the key is to build authentic relationships with other investors whom you genuinely respect and with whom you can have open dialogue. Over time, I’ve optimized for a smaller number of closer connections, rather than shallow connections with a wider circle. Not only are these deeper connections the most productive (we share our best deals, give honest feedback, and push each other’s thinking on new topics), but also the most energizing. These relationships take time to build – but are worth it!
For those just starting out in VC, it’s helpful to be clear about areas of interest and how you can best help each other. I love sharing interesting articles to start a discussion and keep the relationships top of mind. Inviting someone to participate in a panel, organization, or event is also a great way to foster the relationship. - Rachel
How have the skills you developed in your pre-VC work played into your role now?
Harris: I wish I could give a great answer here about how all the Excel modeling I did in banking is really paying off now. Given that Pear invests at the earliest stages, my past finance experience is pretty irrelevant. That being said, what I learned as the Chief of Staff at an early stage startup has come in handy. Whenever I am evaluating a new opportunity or speaking to a portfolio company, it helps to put my operating hat on.
Additionally, I've found that working at a startup has made it easier for me to empathize with founders. I think founders appreciate when pre-GP VCs are vulnerable and admit when they are not an expert in something. My biggest frustration when I was on the operating side was when an investor would hand out advice to try to sound smart, even though it was clear they were out of their element.
Rachel: As an undergrad, I double majored in Engineering and Psychology. There is definitely an appreciation for technical backgrounds here in Silicon Valley, but I have to say, the things I learned in my psychology classes are more helpful in the day-to-day of the job. So much of what we do comes down to people!
During my time at McKinsey, I worked for more than 15 different managers and was exposed to a wide range of executives across the different clients I served. These data points help me recognize qualities in entrepreneurs that will make them good managers and leaders. No matter how smart an individual founder is, they will eventually have to hire a team and delegate tasks to others.
When there are multiple co-founders, I think it’s important to dig into the dynamic between them. I’ll usually ask them to walk me through the process they used for making a recent decision. Walking through a concrete example, rather than just their general decision making philosophy, provides deeper insight into their relationship.
How do you add value to portfolio companies in pre-GP capacities?
Harris: The honest truth is that I probably haven't provided too much value to our portfolio companies thus far. I'm lucky that I worked at a startup beforehand so a few of our early stage founders have enjoyed picking my brain about that experience. Additionally, I was appointed as the PPP expert at Pear so when things hit the fan at the end of April I was sending out daily updates to our portfolio companies. In the future, I want to become known for helping our portfolio companies make their first few engineering hires. I think NEO, Human Capital, and KP already do this well and if I have my way, it won't be long until you can throw Pear in that mix.
Rachel: When I was new to venture capital, I asked my boss (Nikhil Basu Trivedi) this same question. He told me that my biggest asset as a junior investor was time. I wholeheartedly agree with this advice. Compared to both GPs and Founders, we have a lot less on our plates. We have time to stay up-to-date on the news, competitors, and analysts’ reports. We have time to go through every detail of the Board deck. We have the time to research a passing comment that came up in conversation and share back with the team. These small things add up over time!
Community News
Events
Thursday, May 28th: Fireside Chat with Kate Mitchell, Co-founder and Partner at Scale Venture Partners
Friday, May 29th: Fireside Chat with Harry Stebbings, Founder of The Twenty Minute VC and Stride.VC
Thank you to our recent speakers: Zach Weinberg, Co-founder of Flatiron Health, Semil Shah, Founder and GP at Haystack and Venture Partner at Lightspeed, Will Griffith, Co-founder and Partner at ICONIQ Growth, and Cack Wilhelm, Partner at IVP.
Articles
Surviving COVID as an enterprise startup by Nicky Kamra, Streamlined Ventures
Frankly Speaking by Frank Wang, Dell Technologies Capital
China’s coronavirus-related trends and its implications for US VCs by Rocio Wu, F-Prime Capital
Best advice on finding, closing, and growing startup talent by Jessica Li, Soma Capital
Renewal of travel tech by Nandu Anilal, Canaan Partners
The new normal by Jerry Lu, Advancit Capital
Mental model for publishing a successful game by Steve Van Sloun, Loup Ventures
Asks
Subscribe to the EVCA Growth Vertical newsletter, written by Russell Yue at HIG Growth Capital and Jeremy Zhu at CapitalG
Invitation to fill out the COVID-19 sentiments survey (more information here) from the folks at Alpha Venture Partners
Sign up to participate in the female founders/funders mentorship network (connections are only made after double opt in) from Jessica Li, Soma Capital
Recommend top startup operators for Floodgate’s Anchor List by May 29th from Shawn Xu, Floodgate
That’s all Folks!
Connect with us on Twitter: EVCA, Adam & Jessica
Interested in submitting content and/or learning more about the community? Email info@evca.org
- Adam & Jessica