New Life Goal: Joining a Corporate VC Arm (Like Salesforce Ventures or Intel Capital) from Deloitte Consulting
Hi Everyone, currently at the Consultant level at Deloitte (should make Senior Consultant next year). Been on a mix of S&O projects for financial institutions as well as 'tech strategy' projects for various cloud CRM and analytics platforms for a handful of Fortune 500 companies.
I went to a state school and graduated with a business degree - don't have any pure finance or investment management experience. What would the best path be towards landing a gig at a corporate VC arm? I'm currently in the application process for Georgetown's part time MSF program. Also considering applying to MBA programs however worried about taking 2 years off work.
just want to add: I'm open to a 5 year plan with actionable targets/goals. I understand this will not be an overnight jump.
MSF won't do anything for you if you want to move to VC. Best chance is to move to a startup, or move to strategy within a larger, successful tech company, work there for a few years and then move to corporate VC.
ledger123, would need to target a Corporate Strategy/Development role then. The MSF was more for having some 'pedigree' to show. Georgetown's program runs around 22 months part-time, and costs around 60k.
Take this with a gain of salt, as I'm sure there are many ways to break-in and mine is more VC focused than Corporate VC.
I was in relatively the same boat and was trying to break into VC in the Midwest, below are the key insights I've developed from the countless conversations I've had with VCers:
Probably one of the most important (at least in the Midwest since its smaller): get involved in the start-up community. Its a small community and by getting involved you'll start establishing a network. Your network and ability to be familiar with key players, organizations, events, etc. will be super helpful in making you more marketable.
Have technology/start-up experience. Unless you can break into VC, the next best thing that I've been told, on multiple occasions, is having some sort of start-up experience. Doing so will enable you to experience the "growing pains" and hands-on experience on issues that start-ups will face in going to market, scaling, etc. which in turn from a VC-investor perspective, will enable you to dig deeper in investment opportunities and see potential flags or issues that others may not see.
This kind of expands more on #2, but be able to think like an investor - how do you determine what a good investment is? Everyone's thought process is different, but you'll for sure be asked this at some point, and you should think it through.
Lastly, I've realized that modeling and finance skills aren't really that important/relevant. This will depend on the type and stage that the company is at, but some may be pre-revenue or pre-earnings, as such, most of the "modeling" you'll be doing is more high-level, market sizing analysis that a DCF, etc.
Thank you for the extremely detailed response. For your second point on joining a start-up, would you recommend joining a start-up at the pre-profit stage or early growth stage? Most start-ups I know run fairly lean and don't have as much room for the Corp Dev/Corp Strategy type work with the exception of some of the larger unicorns (or close to unicorns). For your fourth point, I viewed the MSF program as a way to boost my overall credentials and financial acumen without taking time away from work. The program runs around 60K vs 100K+ for an MBA and is a significant 'prestige' boost over my current non-target undergrad.
That's a great question and I honestly don't know the answer. With that said, the following would be my thought process:
The earlier the stage of company, the better. Earlier the stage = smaller firm = your role/responsibilities/impact is that much more valuable to the success of the company. Obviously thats much easier said than done. As you indicated, most start-ups view business people more as an administrative cost and a nice-to-have, as oppose to someone crucial for the team. Which makes perfect sense when you consider that early-stage companies typically have tight cash-flows and need to spend there money wisely (e.g. more developers, architects, etc.) and not on CorpDev/CorpStrat folks.
My suggestion to go into tech/start-up wasn't specifically to go in the Corp Dec/Corp Strat positions. Those positions are nearly impossible to find. The easier bet would be to go into a BizOps role, which would still be beneficial. You'll develop a functional expertise, industry expertise, and also understand common pain points/issues associated with a growing start-up. All that would help position you well with VCs since you would have that operational expertise and be able to vet/review investment opportunities either (1) more efficiently or (2) more effectively (ideally both).
Coming from Big 4 Consulting, that's been the more common path I've seen some folks take. But again, take it with a grain of salt...
The above advice is good plus network network network. Oh and network some more. For VC, demand >>>> supply of roles.
MSF doesn't add any value for VC. Experience at an early to mid stage startup would be much more valuable.
I'm in the same boat as OP- Was thinking of getting an MBA, and aiming to do a few years in TMT M&A at an EB/BB to try and be competitive for corporate VC. Has anyone seen success using this approach?
I just started researching this path recently- sorry in advance if there's an easy resource I'm missing.
How were you able to learn the skills needed for Deloitte Consulting coming from a state school with a business degree?
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