($) How does venture capital actually work? (Or, how much do you know?)

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1. Jenny Niu says

   June 14, 2021 at 4:06 am

   Hi EssaySnark,

   Thanks for all the insightful resources. Would like to ask a question on pitching VC as a career goal to AdCom.

   I’ve been doing a lot of research and reflections and know that VC is what I hope to do post MBA. I also have clear plans on how I intend to leverage the resources at B school to prepare myself for VC.

   However, I am concerned that my VC goal may come across as a stretch to the AdCom, especially since I do not have pre-MBA IB/VC/consulting experience. I know that the VC industry is incredibly hard to break in. The sense I got from your posts on VC is that applicants should also assess how realistic their career goals are when pitching to the AdCom.

   Hence, I am torn between “putting together an authentic pitch” vis a vis “tempering expectations and adjusting the goal to something that is more within reach”.

   Hope to hear your thoughts on this please. Thank you.

   Best Regards,
   Jenny

   • essaysnark says

     June 15, 2021 at 8:11 pm

     Hey Jenny! Thanks for reading the blahg and asking the question about the VC idea for your MBA apps!

     Unfortunately this is the type of question that is totally situation-specific — meaning, it absolutely depends on how you’re able to showcase your background in the context of this intended goal. You don’t have to have had pre-MBA experience that’s directly in one of these areas, but you do have to have SOMETHING to show that it is a viable path-forward for you to try for. From what you’ve shared, you’re really looking at these things carefully, and you have good reasons to feel in your gut that VC might be accessible to you, based on what you have researched. Right there, that tells us that perhaps you can put together a pitch to convince the admissions team, too!

     However, we can’t say for sure that’s the case without seeing it actually coming together (at minimum, looking at the resume) — so we cannot greenlight the idea sight-unseen. Over and over, in all our years of doing this, those that seem to have the most satisfying outcomes are those who go for the authenticity in everything that they present. Obviously it’s possible to get in to a top business school using tempered expectations and adjusting the goal, and then going for the REAL goal once you’re there — but if the background today isn’t fully supportive of that ultimate goal, then it’s unlikely it’ll be supportive of it later, right? Which is kind of why the schools put up this as a measuring stick or criteria to be useful in the first place, not just for them, but for the applicants who are trying to figure out their future lives and where they will find the greatest success and much more importantly, career satisfaction.

     This probably feels like a non-answer answer, and so we’ll sum it up by saying: If your research and your honest introspection shows you that yes, you have the skills and qualifications such that venture capital should be in reach — with the combination of what you’ll gain and grow out of the MBA, of course — then pitch that!

     And, also, be sure that you’re using this process of soul-searching and double-checking to get these ideas well vetted, by a qualified advisor who can give you straightforward feedback and help you course-correct if necessary.

     (If you feel that that ‘trusted advisor’ might come in the form of a certain snarky consultant, then we can suggest the Career Goals App Accelerator as a fine place to start!)

     We truly believe in going after what you honestly want to do — and the whole ‘tempered expectations’ is also sometimes the dose of reality that is needed to make sure that you get there.

     EssaySnark