by Jason Lemkin | Blog Posts, Q&A
Dear SaaStr: How Hard Is It to Break Into Venture Capital?
It’s a tiny industry that is tough to break into. For sure. Truly tiny. There are only a few hundred VC firms, and each may only need 1-3 more junior investors. That means a handful of positions, really.
There just aren’t that many VC firms, and they don’t have that many employees.
But here’s the thing folks don’t get: just about every VC fund I know — including SaaStr Fund itself — is hiring. At least 1 investing professional. Almost all of them. The roles are rarely advertised on LinkedIn or on their websites, but everyone needs help and leverage investing.
So if you really, really, really want to break in — work it:
- Research every possible firm that does the type of investing you are interested in
- Write a partner there the world’s best cold email
- Share why you’d be a great investor there — this is hard, but you gotta do it
- -> Point out 2–3 startups you know are hot that they may have missed
- Etc.
Write the world’s best cold email. It may not be responded to, but I bet it gets opened.
It’s not just a hard industry to break into — it’s also hard for partners to find more junior folks that can really do the work. To hustle like heck to find the next Google, Datadog, Atlassian, Wiz, Figma, etc. That knows the difference between Great and Just Very, Very Good. That is willing to do the work.
Be that person.
A bit more here:
