Business
Breaking into Venture Capital with RLC Ventures
In this episode of the RLC Ventures podcast, the team discusses how to break into the venture capital industry, sharing personal experiences and insights. They emphasize the importance of passion for ...
Breaking into Venture Capital with RLC Ventures
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Interactive Transcript
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So we're here today to talk about how to get into VC. It's a question a lot of people
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ask the RLC Ventures team. So I thought we would do a little five to ten minute podcast
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on our experiences from all different people within the team. So we've got myself who's the
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managing partner and set up the firm four and a half years ago and came from a consulting
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background at EY and built a number of companies and sold some of them and got into VC
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through lots of different channels and kind of hustling my way in a lot of time and we've got Oliver
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who's our associate who will probably give a quick intro now. Sure yeah I don't need RFC 16
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back in October 2019. I've pretty seen been working in the Salafita system and with a lot of
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various things companies for the last three or four years at Los Angeles University and yeah
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they have shared some insight on my journey into the world of Ventures. And now we've got Ryan who's
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been with us since the start of RLC almost who's our entrepreneur and residents and he'll give
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you a brief intro on himself. Yeah so my background is in engineering and I'm a recent graduate from
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Imperial College London. It's a very similar to Oli like I've been into startups for a while now and
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yeah I started back in uni and thanks for having me. No problem. So I think the first question a lot
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of people want to know is like it's quite a closed industry and you know a lot of people think it's
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an insider's club often dominated by certain type of people maybe from a certain type of background.
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What do you think it would be like your number one tip for people kind of trying to break into VC
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from you know often an early age or people coming out of uni or a little bit of experience.
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Why don't Ryan you take that? Yeah so I think the number one common mistake is by somehow
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associating VC with the finance industry and there are certain elements of VC that are definitely
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that definitely overlap with finance but I would say the number one thing you need is a passion for
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the for the startup world and the startup ecosystem and I mean the moment you get VC you'll
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realize it's a people industry like you've got to be good with people you've got to be able to
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network effectively and humans are really good at like seeing through you know people's bullshit
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and you've got to be super authentic in your in your passion with startups and you can see that
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really really usually you can so I mean you talk to somebody for 30 seconds you can immediately see
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kind of where their passions and knowledge kind of lies and this super crucial for this industry
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because you'll see like so many people a day and you've got to instantly be able to recognize who
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you want to keep as a contact. Yeah I completely agree with mine I think you know one of our
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core values as a firm is passion and that passion is exuded in a number ways and you know when you're
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approaching you know the industry and fundamentally I think people think you know it's all about
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you know helping build companies and yes that's a big part of it and working with founders that's
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great part of the job but essentially we should do what we say on the tin venture capital is about
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investing and you have to have a passion for investing and you know when I started my early career
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I did a lot of you know very very small angel investing through crowdfunding very small angel
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investments myself and it doesn't require a lot of money and I think for me when I see any young
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pit person coming up and approaching me I'm like the first thing what you invested in why do you
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invest in that company even if it's like 100 pounds and 10 pounds and they built like a big portfolio
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of just doing 10 pounds investments I think this is the most crucial thing because you you know you've
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got to really want to be an investor first and foremost rather than you know working I think you
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know you're working with startups all the time because that is the main part of the job and making a
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return in a lot of ways so I think that's a really good insight Ryan just to build on that and Oli
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anything more to add in terms of let your top tip or you know one thing you would kind of do to
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break into the industry earlier if you did it again yeah I thought I think kind of to echo both
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your points to it it would be essentially around kind of relationships and understanding sort of
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different people's motivations and what they perceive as kind of valuable to their own network
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if you're able to tap into that early on and understand how you can kind of get in front of the
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right people and demonstrate to your somebody you can be valuable to their mission purpose be that
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a fund or a startup or you know an accelerator just any but any player within the ecosystem I think
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you're going to have quite a lot of success if you're able to bring them some of these they
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currently struggle to access or solve a problem for them that's a daily challenge within their role
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so if you can really spend some time reading listening to people talking about what it is they
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do on a daily basis and think if you could provide them any insight or help to get over some of
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those problems then I think not going to be a really good place to start yeah you make a really
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good point in the resources Oli there's a lot a lot of stuff out there most most VCs you know publish
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stuff on medium or have a very good blog and you know there's so much content out there and you know
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even if you go on my LinkedIn I have a reading list of books you should read if you're kind of
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interesting in adventure so I do check that out and the questions to both of you and start with Oli
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this time is there anything particularly on the resource side you picked up that you know you would
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like to have a little bit earlier on in your career that would have kind of helped you get into
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VC or breaking a little bit earlier in your opinion in terms of particular books I think
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for me it's always been working like that with some historical looking book called e-boys
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which talks about the foundations of benchmarks they're one of the most successful kind of U.S.
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funds set up in the late ages early 90s obviously that's really good context the industry is a whole
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and so relevant today and a really good kind of place to get the grips to some of the key challenges
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some of the key players and voices in the industry so it's a pretty good place to start and then again
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it's just really beautiful as you can be people and try and just gain some bit of knowledge through
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conversation and your coffee but try not to kind of be and people say because I'm taking up time
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without necessarily being able to offer something bit information kind of results is like I'm
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commenting before so I think that those would be the key things instead of also just continuously
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reading I think try and build that network and provide the unavailable assets of people from day one
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yeah that's there's really good points and I think I guess linking kind of to what
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what I mentioned there was podcasting and I think can be really useful resource specifically
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podcasts focused on the start world so I mean out of the various resources out there
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I think just to put you in a in a mental state of the founder can be really practical when
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approaching founders or even you know helping them out on a day-to-day basis I think just putting
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yourself in that frame of mind can be really really practical yeah great great points from both
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of you I think and insightful one thing I think we'll just kind of finish on is have you got any
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kind of stories you would like to share with people like some insight and like you know so for
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example I know Oliver came through a referral from an old colleague he used to work with when
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he came to RLC and so he kind of got his breakthrough often his referral and his network which he
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talked about and and so is anything that you know you might have had some stories with founders and
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you know because I think fundamentally like BC we were talking about this today with him team
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is actually like really a sales drawb you're kind of selling to investors you're selling to
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founders just selling people constantly and it's very relationship driven and often network driven
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which is can be good and bad is any kind of stories you too want to share about that kind of
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aspect of the job and like where you kind of use some lateral thinking to kind of get into places
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or do something a little bit different um yeah for me I mean I can start on that one I think
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spend a bit of time like research in projects joining RLC working in the ecosystem building up
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network of early stage investors we have our program which showcases cohort of enterprise
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early stage companies to investors and through there we really help them see some deal flow and
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obviously that takes a box for people being kind of engaging and kind of making a lot of the
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impression doing some research on the firms or the fund that you're seeking to you know if you're
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not necessarily doing some some conversations in your prior to joining one and having the knowledge
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in insight will be impressive and not making people kind of you know done that on things and being
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able to just understand the language and really conversed with them and dig deep on the individual
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just like like and their thesis as well so I think that's something I learned kind of prior to
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the joining RLC and I think that's something anybody can do that does have an interest in the
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in the industry you just go out and you know try and build that network through maybe the
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role you're in currently if you're in maybe something more large and core for this probably
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some ways that they're interacting with early stage companies maybe through the innovation or
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procurement department if it's from itself I'm sure the founders themselves might have talked
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about raising capital or network so just try and think a bit more naturally and see where other
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businesses or ecosystem participants might be touching on to the investment side of things and
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yeah super interesting and the way only that I articulate this kind of internally is through
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creating a brand for myself right and so I guess in the same age you've got
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social media etc and you've got much greater leverage with your ability to create a brand for
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yourself and I think starting early is super useful when it comes to creating a really good
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brand for yourself because you know you never know you know what the referral is going to come
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through you know 10 years down the line five years down the line that's what I think is a really
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practical thing I guess on a you know daily basis how can I really create and expand my own personal
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brand and there are so many creative ways you can do this I mean I know people that you know just
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create podcasts for themselves and you know there is some other thing they do on like a daily basis
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and it's not nowhere near something they do full time but it's definitely really practical in building
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your brand and building your network in that sense yeah great great points very to you on those
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on those sides definitely helped me in my career and kind of getting to this point I think just
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leave everyone who's listening to the podcast you know on some insight I think this this this
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industry is you know very humbling and you never you never got to you never can stop learning so I
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think the key to demonstrate like your willingness to be in it's constantly learning constantly you
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know innovating on yourself and I think that's the thing that you keep can keep going back to
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and kind of pushing yourself on if you want to kind of get into BC it's it's a hard industry to
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break into and you know for example it was so hard for me in a lot of ways I just built a built a
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company myself and I think you know I wouldn't advise that to a lot of people but like I think
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you've got to do it in your own way because often you're kind of an entrepreneur yourself
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being going into BC so I'll leave you with those thoughts and thank you to the team Ryan and Oli
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joining us today and hopefully that this podcast provided some insight into how to get into
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BC for those people thinking about breaking into it. Thanks guys. Bye.