Breaking Into VC: An Exceptional “Gift” Guide
Guide compiled with collective effort from Andrew Van Nest, Marell Evans, Kiana Washington, and Melissa Morano Aurigemma.
At Exceptional Capital, we’ve all been — and continue to be — impacted by positive mentorship. There are moments in all of our lives where mentorship has given us essential perspective, feedback, or confidence. Despite optics or posturing, the truth is that no one makes it 100% alone. Advice or guidance from those who have been in your shoes before can go a long way. That’s one of the reasons why internally we are so passionate about mentorship, finding ways to truly support and empower the next generation of brilliant builders and VCs.
Ultimately, we are all still learning and always finding new, incredible resources along the way — but these are pieces of advice we hope can be useful to anyone who is looking to explore the world of VC in a professional capacity.
LinkedIn People to Follow
You’ll learn quickly that LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools you can leverage. “Your network is your strength” often gets thrown around the VC ecosystem and there’s no better time to build your network than now. Many of the conversations I’ve had over my career simply came from the fact that someone accepted my LinkedIn request because I shared a critical mass of mutual connections — the key is to have something to say, to have an opinion so that the eventual conversation rings true and people remember you — the following people are incredible thought leaders on LinkedIn in their respective areas:
Product: Gokul Rajaram
Engineering: Alex Xu
GTM: Kevin White
Culture: Adam Grant
Books
Sometimes reading the founding stories of venture firms and the people who build them can shed light on some amazing “lightning in a bottle” moments. Additionally, reading about organization psychology and learning that “lightning in a bottle” can be captured repeatedly if you know where to look and how to recognize it — these books provide a clinic for understanding where hidden power lies!
Paradigm shift is a buzzy term, but one that Thomas Kuhn investigates brilliantly in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. An incredibly important and applicable read for so many disciplines and industries.
Podcasts
Some of the best knowledge comes from reading tomes of company founding history or the ever nebulous world of Limited Partners. Super accessible, you can find everything from Phil Knight and Nike, Evan Spiegel and Snapchat to the less public-facing funds that keep the VC ecosystem afloat. The life of a new VC is often swamped and reading 500+ biographies or tracking down unlisted family offices may not be efficient. Luckily these podcasts take care of the heavy lift for you!
The Limited Partner with David Weisburg and Erik Torenberg
Founders with David Senra
Acquired with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
VC Tech Stack
Quick download on some basic tools anyone in VC space can expect to see. One of the most important things an analyst or associate can bring to the table early is backend management — learning and using the tools many VC firms use to run the day to day operations — having exposure or genuine experience with these tools is valuable:
Internal Comms: Slack, Zoom
Tip from our Exceptional intern Kiana Washington: she shares “Join as many Slack groups as possible. It’s great for networking, upcoming conferences, and deal flow.”
CRM: Affinity, Attio
Project Management: Notion
Portfolio Management: Tactyc
Fund Admin: AngelList, Carta
Data: Pitchbook, Crunchbase, CB Insights, Harmonic
Data Room: Docsend, Notion
Job Search
Your favorite VC firms LinkedIn, websites, newsletters, Mediums
Exceptional Capital has a growing internship program — get in touch if you’re interested!
