Thriving In Ambiguity — What To Do Your First Year As A Venture Capitalist

Nina Achadjian at Index Ventures answering the question she says she’s asked most: how do you impose structure and goals on a job that has almost none?

Own something strategic to the firm. Not a vague contribution — a real initiative with a surface area: build a scout fund, develop a data-science strategy, run team bonding, invent a sourcing channel. In a role without a scoreboard, owning an initiative is how you manufacture one.

Write content, and her reasoning is the durable part: writing is scalable — an article lives online and keeps reaching people long after you wrote it, which almost nothing else a junior investor does can claim.

Notes

• One of the questions I get asked the most by my friends or acquaintances who are just getting started in venture capital is how to introduce a framework and goals in a seemingly unstructured job.
• Own something strategic to your firm. Some examples of initiatives include building a scout fund, developing a data science strategy, creating team bonding events, or finding new ways to add value to portfolio founders.
• Write content. This is important for three reasons: First, writing content is scalable, meaning an article or blog can live online for a long time and reach a lot of people. This is much more powerful than doing a panel. Second, the beauty of being in a VC seat is that you get a boots-on-the-ground view of innovation across a variety of sectors and trends. This means you have asymmetric access to emerging trends. Finally and most importantly, sharing thoughtful content often gives founders a first impression of you before you even walk into the room. This elevates the conversation immediately.