Hi! I’m glad you’re here. You’ve made it to issue #8 of VC Demystified🪄.

My name’s Nicole - I’m a Principal at an early stage venture fund, and I know firsthand that VC can often be a black box. Breaking into the industry may feel daunting and resources can seem scarce and inaccessible. I wanted to put together a newsletter to give others the playbook I wish I had when I first started.

My personal mission is to open as many doors as possible for other people and this newsletter is just one avenue to do that. As always, I will continue to post VC insights daily across my socials for those of you who prefer those channels.

Have a VC interview coming up? Congrats, you’ve accomplished step one! BUT now you need to prepare for the interview.

Knowing where to start can be hard. There are many resources online that will tell you different things, but I’ve aggregated a simple checklist you can utilize to get you prepared for interview #1. This was put together leveraging my own experience and the experiences of other aspiring VCs. I’d say if you do all 8 steps of this checklist, you should be well-suited to nail nearly any first round interview.

The checklist is bucketed into 5 categories:

Bucket #1: Firm specific research you should be doing
Bucket #2: Preparation on your background & story
Bucket #3: VC market trends to study
Bucket #4: Startup pitch selection and practice
Bucket #5: Question list for your interviewer

In this issue, I’ll be giving you an easy 8-step checklist to follow to nail your first VC interview. Hopefully this relieves some interview prep stress and makes you feel more confident going into your VC interview.

Let’s get into it!

Be sure to note their investment stage, industries, geographies, check size, ownership targets, fund size and fund number.

I’ll note that there are some firms that invest on certain themes or theses that you should know as well. A good example of this is Bessemer. Their investment themes are called “roadmaps”. For example, Bessemer will invest in AI, but only if it fits a certain thesis they have on that market. A theme they’ve stated: The AI revolution is catalyzing an evolution in the data stack for enterprises. So specifically they will be looking at AI companies that are impacting the data tech stacks of corporations.

It’s important to truly understand what the firm looks for in an investment and if you know all the criteria I mentioned above, you should have a good sense of this.

You should study 2-3 portfolio companies, being able to speak in-depth about what you like about the investments. Important things to have answered about the portfolio companies: problem, solution, product overview, market size & trends, why now is a great time to build this.

You should also prepare 1-2 portfolio companies you are critical of and have reasons as to why you would not have invested. This is an area many aspiring VCs forget to prepare.

*Tip: Here is a good time to also cite the firm’s investment criteria you studied in step 1. You can say you liked an investment because it fits xyz thesis well or you disliked an investment because it seemed out of scope.

Read, read, read! Listen, listen, listen!

Look for blog posts, reports, newsletters, podcasts, videos or any other content the firm has released on their website or on socials (Linkedin, X, Instagram, Threads). You should also look for podcast appearances any firm Partners have done.

There is so much you can learn from public sources that you can bring to your interview, including information to help you populate step 1 and 2.

*Tip: Be sure to look at the firm’s team members’ socials too, especially the team member interviewing you.