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Startups to Bet Your Career On?

PLUS: lessons from Phil Knight

Author

Michaela Gordon
March 20, 2024

The Early - 9th Edition

Hi all! Hope everyone’s having a great week 😊 As always, thanks all for following and for checking out the job board! Some exciting roles posted this week from Pear VC, Primary Venture Partners, and more 👀 

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💹 Today’s schedule:

New VC Roles This Week 💫 

Internships 🤓 
Analyst Roles 😍 
Associate/Senior Associate 😄 
Operational Roles 🤠 

Roles Still Open From Last Week 🏃‍♀️ 

❗️ Note that many VC roles are posted without application deadlines and filled on a rolling basis - if you see one you like, I’d recommend applying within a week, or as soon as possible!

Startups to Bet Your Career On? 💡 

I recently read this article by Business Insider, listing 44 startups to 'bet your career on’ in 2024. Since VCs have diversified portfolios and firms can be returned from one or two exceptional investments, this exercise is great and really makes you think about evaluating startups with the lens of putting all your eggs in one basket 👀 

A few from the list that stood out to me (most of which are also hiring!):

🐝 Beehiiv: Suite of tools for newsletter writers (and the platform I’m using to write this newsletter!) Love companies that disrupt antiquated industries and it’s a huge plus if you can use and test out the platform yourself. Their platform is top-notch with new features constantly being added, and growing lightning-fast.

🐟️ Jellyfish: Co-pilot for engineering leaders, providing better visibility into team operations through data and insights. Love that they’re focusing their product on improving teamwork and aligning actions with the company’s mission - which oddly tends to become muddled in a lot of companies. Raised from Accel, Insight Partners, and Tiger Global.

🚀 Causal: Tool helping marketers get more value out of every advertising dollar. In advertising, even tiny changes to copy can make a big difference in outcomes. Causal allows marketers to easily test different iterations of ads. Backed by Pear VC and Founder Collective.

  • Not currently hiring, but one I’m excited to follow!

Also, here’s one I’ll add that wasn’t on Business Insider’s list:

🤖 Quilter: AI-powered, automated PCB design tool. Again, disrupting an industry with a clear need for new solutions (hardware design). Unlike legacy tools in the space, Quilter is collaborative, user-friendly, and automated. They recently raised a $10M Series A round led by Benchmark and Coatue!

Early-Career Read of the Week: Shoe Dog 👟 

I recently finished Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - it’s an incredible story of entrepreneurship, grit, and passion that made Nike what it is today. I couldn’t put this down and highly recommend it to anyone interested in starting their own company one day or investing in startups 👟 

A few takeaways:

  • The most important qualities for founding teams? Passion, grit, and ‘figure-it-out-ness’: According to Phil, successful founding teams don’t need to be ‘geniuses’ on paper, but they do need to have a passion (borderline obsession) with the problem they’re solving and the determination to weather failure over and over.

  • Get the small, step-by-step decisions right and don’t worry too much about the big picture: So much of Phil’s journey was figuring things out as he went, making small decisions that built on top of one another (e.g. finding a manufacturer, securing a loan, talking to customers one-by-one) - he had a vision, but didn’t lose sight of the baby steps needed to get there.

  • You need to trust others - you can’t build a successful business without help: Phil knew when he was in over his head in certain parts of the business. When this happened, he brought in others to help, and gave them the autonomy and trust to make decisions.

  • Enjoy the journey: The day before Nike IPO’d, Phil’s biggest regret was that he couldn’t go back and live the journey all over again - he loved the process. His life didn’t change too much after making all that money. Thought this was incredible.

..and so many more lessons to learn from. Loved this book and highly recommend!

ICYMI: Interview with Ryan Chandra 👏 

Last week, I chatted with my friend Ryan Chandra, consultant-turned-VC at Accenture Ventures🤩 

We chatted about:

  • Ryan’s experience starting his career in consulting and later transitioning to VC

  • Accenture Ventures’ investment approach as a CVC and their immersive engagement model

  • Learnings and day-in-the-life as an early-career VC

  • Finding ways to de-stress in fast-paced careers

  • Trends in data and AI investing

    …and more!

You can read key takeaways from our conversation and check out the full interview here 👀 

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Resources 📝 

  • Check out Soapbox, one of my favorite newsletters focused on career, culture, and capital 🙌 

  • Check out NextGen’s newsletter, geared towards the next generation of leaders in venture capital 💪 

  • Download my meeting notes template for VC/investment pitches 🧠 

  • Take a look at the Early VC job board with roles updated twice weekly 🤓 

Say Hi! 👋 

And that’s all for this week! You can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, and X. As always, feel free to reach out to [email protected] with any questions and/or feedback. I’d love to hear from you!🙂 

-Mic

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