For a seasoned career person with roughly 6-8 years work experience, what would be the better route if your long term goal is to be an early stage (seed to series c) VC investor?
Joining MBB as an consultant or working at a few different VC backed tech startups and keep working ones way up the ranks? Both are very different options and could lead to the end goal, just not too sure what would be the best route, both for short term (work life balance/income) and long term (end goal of VC investing).
Would recommend tech startup at this point
Thanks for the reply. If you don’t mind, why tech startup at this point?
Anecdotal. I tend to see MBB --> startup during the first 1-3 years of the MBB analyst's tenure. I believe it is more rare to see more experienced laterals, except after business school.
You quote Seed to Series C - that is a wide range. Series C looks more like "private equity" than it does Seed investing, truthfully. You are getting into classic diligence, whereas for Seed and A, all you can really diligence reliably is Founder, Product, and Market (how could you possibly know if the business is going to grow 2x or 10x).
I think it's more common to see people at the experienced level coming in from operating backgrounds. The path is that you are at a CXO role that interfaces with the investors and build relationships with VCs and so have a point of entry.
This is a tricky question. The answer in a vacuum is a wildly successful tech startup - if you worked at Dropbox/Uber/Snowflake pre Series C you would not only be quite wealthy, you would easily be able to angel invest on your own, join a Tier 2/3 early-stage stage firm and would also be an interesting profile to Tier 1 VC firms.
I think a lot of people really discount the connections/experience MBB will give you. Not only will you be a call away from most firms (all top VC firms have some ex-consultants), but it will give you a platform to join a startup as a director.
Lastly, I see people planning their careers around joining VCs as a long-term goal. You should not do this.
1) The chances of getting into a solid VC fund is very low
2) The chances of moving up in a solid VC firm is also... very low
3) 80% of VC partners.... never really thought about setting up their careers to break into VCs. They were either operators or founders who stumbled upon it or were approached to join firm or they went to a top undergrad/MBA and had the option to recruit into it young - after undergrad/IB/Consulting
4) VC is democratizing. People are finding ways to build track records without being tied to a firm.
Tough to give you prescriptive advice. What is your background? My guess is you're in graduate school, but it's tough to say more without understanding your situation, What startup are you considering? Which MBB office?
Thanks, appreciate the insight and advice. Would love to go the route of a tech startup, hit it big with a Snowflake type exit, angel invest and then jump to VC but the likelihood of that happening is minimal.
Background is 6-8 years of tech business development experience, most recently working in a mid-level leadership position for a PE backed company. Would either be joining a tech startup in the enterprise tech space, think Harness, Kong, Laceworks, Snyk, Firebolt, etc. MBB office would be NYC.
Those are companies that are solid, you have done your homework. A few things to consider
a) Sales/BD roles pivot less often into VC than product and other roles, the sales roles that do pivot are usually Rev Ops/Sales Ops roles (so close to metrics/#s)
b) MBB NYC should have a good amount of software casework, but the vast majority happens in SF and SV offices from what I have heard. More recruiting opps there as well
c) You already have enterprise BD experience, so MBB will give you a more well-rounded profile.
d) Joining Kong/Snyk etc are a little bit 'later' than ideal (you won't get halo effect from being there pre-unicorn status.
I would take MBB and attempt to transition to a growth-stage startup similar to the one you mentioned in 2-3 years.
I would seriously caution against holding VC up as your ultimate end-goal. Folks I have seen do this go to sub-scale or mediocre, end up making less than their operating peers, and don't have carry or economics in a decently performing fund.
VC is a highly variable, luck-driven game with high risk and low optionality - careers in it and pathways in mimic have the same charecteristics. I have 2-3 friends who your exact position who took VC jobs and are earning much less with less rewarding work at early-stage firms. Happy to chat over DM.
Are you coming out of B-School or trying to land a role at an MBB?
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