How to break into VC from a non-traditional background #WomenInVC #CareerAdvice #BreakingIntoVC

I'm Julie Castro-Abrams and I'm the general partner of How Women Invest. Joanna Drake from Magnify Ventures. Catherine Rice, I'm a partner at Gingerbread Capital here in the Bay Area. If I were coming from a non-traditional background and wanting to break into a venture firm, the best methodology for demonstrating my capability and skills would be to have had some kind of experiences in startups, even if it was an internship or a summer associate or a couple of years. Just being around winning founders in their early stages of company building starts to give you a playbook around how to successfully raise capital, firm build, and ultimately show your understanding of successful startups so that you can source deals, make great decisions on investing, and ultimately accelerate the success of those portfolio companies. The people who I see who have the easiest path into venture because they're very unique is someone who has a huge network. There's somebody who has built a brand, who knows how to create a storyline, who has other people that they can bring along and get invested in and excited about being involved with that company, whether it's founders that you bring with you or investors VCs. Venture capital is a network game. Well, I may be biased because I'm a former operator, but I think operators have a really good skill set to come into investing. It used to be that it was mostly bankers that were investing, but now I see lots of really smart people who have run businesses, who can really advise founders, and help them to understand what the strategy is, how to build their team, how to grow their company. And so, however you come in, make sure that you're leveraging your key skills that know your strength and then take it from there.