How understanding VC can level up your career?

At Insignia Ventures Academy, we often get asked if our program is meant to produce more talent for the venture capital industry.?

While that is the initial demand the VC Accelerator was designed to meet, we have since realized after five cohorts (applications for the sixth are ongoing!) and more than 150 venture fellows that there are many things to learn from experiencing what it’s like to be a venture capitalist.?

There are skills, insights, and connections from a venture capital curriculum that can translate into careers as leaders of growth-stage tech companies, sales or BD professionals, banking and investment managers, angel investors, engineering leaders, and more.?

We put together five examples of how a VC education, specifically the one we offer through Insignia Ventures Academy, can level up various careers, and hopefully yours, should you decide to be a part of any of our programs.?

(1) Deepen your understanding of your chosen field or career

You may already be an expert in a certain field or career, and learning the VC perspective on this industry could add more layers to your own views. For example, doing due diligence on startups first hand allows you to think more critically about evaluating the prospects of businesses in an industry, even beyond those in the public markets. SaaS operator and Salesforce alum Jeraldine Phneah shares more about this on an episode of Academy Afterthoughts:?

“Although I have spent quite a lot of time in the SaaS sector, what I learned through the Academy is still very relevant and interesting. But when it comes to evaluating a SaaS startup, the approach will be different. And that’s when I found the Academy very useful because there was a really good standardized framework around how we approach evaluating a Pre-Series A or seed stage kind of company. So things like looking at the founder-market fit and also things like doing the due diligence right with the customers and all that will be very important.”

(2) Get out of your comfort zone

The VC Accelerator in particular allows fellows to choose from a selection of verticals per cohort, which can range from AI to biotech, fintech, and more. This exposure allows fellows to explore industries that perhaps they have harbored interest in or just dipped their feet into but haven’t had the opportunity to dive into because their career has already been ongoing on a specific path. Jui Takle, strategic development lead at digital bank Tonik, shares how she used her IVA experience to dive deeper in health tech even if most of her experience is in FinTech.?

“I had invested in one health tech startup in India through a syndicate, but I hadn’t built a thesis or tried to understand the gaps in the market. [The Academy] really helped me gain a different perspective, such as how the primary segment is really developed in the region, but the specialized secondary segment is not, which many health tech startups are now getting into.”

This could be particularly useful in broadening one’s view of career opportunities, perhaps one’s view of angel investment opportunities, or even opportunities to start a company.

(3) Go Back to Basics of Building a Sustainable Business

Because the IVA VC Accelerator program focuses on early-stage startups, there’s a lot to learn in terms of the foundations of building a business from the ground up -- things like product-market fit, working with a tight budget, and other conditions or scenarios that professionals in a corporate or growth setting would not be as familiar with or even take for granted. An ecommerce operator and former Lazada growth exec, Geraldine Se, illustrates this discovery from her own journey:

“Interestingly, I think coming from mature tech companies, some of these things that I’ve learned from IVA don’t necessarily come to mind or come to the fore. And it’s also helped me to shape and refine my thinking when evaluating businesses.?

So a few of these are really understanding what it is that a founder or the team is trying to solve...To this day, I use that to frame my thinking when approaching issues and opportunities because your consumers and your stakeholders are usually your most important [allies] because you need them to buy into your idea.?

And you have to understand what it is that they face, what pain points they face, and what it is that your product is trying to address. Simple, but I think sometimes we forget how critical that is. Cause you can build the most fanciful product, but if nobody– it’s not solving anyone’s problem, it’s not gonna gain any traction.”?

This can be particularly useful for career trajectories looking to explore leadership roles in earlier-stage companies or starting a company.?

(4) Build exposure to Southeast Asia’s opportunities

Another draw we have seen for our programs has been its focus on Southeast Asia’s markets. Even if venture fellows may focus on a specific vertical throughout the VC Accelerator program for example, they also have the opportunity to learn from each other and program mentors.?

This builds up significant exposure to “a breadth of industries and verticals and technology and learning about them through this program where I would not necessarily, and typically would not have the opportunity to come across,” as Geraldine explains further on the podcast.?

She adds, “So I think that makes for a very rich knowledge base, coming across companies or problems that founders are trying to solve for in biotech, in agritech, which may not be so applicable in Singapore, but I think in some of our surrounding Southeast Asian countries, femhealth or B2B SaaS businesses.”

This can be particularly useful for career trajectories looking to play a larger role in Southeast Asia.

(5) Leverage learnings for meaningful interactions and become a thought leader

IVA’s VC Accelerator opens doors to a vibrant community of investors, entrepreneurs, and industry experts. By learning about VC, you forge connections that could ignite remarkable collaborations and growth opportunities.?

But the gains go beyond the quantity of the network. It can also impact the substance and quality of the relationships and interactions you are able to have, having gained deeper understanding and hardwon lessons (which we’ve outlined in the previous items). Family office CEO Harsh Rungta illustrates this point on Academy Afterthoughts episode:?

“What the stint did for me was it really helped me understand some of the nuances of VC investing which in turn has kind of made my interactions with founders and other players in the ecosystem much more credible, otherwise I would have been approaching them more like a real rookie, but this has brought in more substance to our discussions. So that’s kind of been my biggest sort of gain from it. And it really helps me in my current role, more so than in my previous role, because now I directly interact with a lot of founders and other companies when we evaluate investments, and this comes in handy.”

This can be particularly useful for career trajectories which are being impacted by startup or frontier innovation, and where having this “thought leadership” can come in handy to build relationships and win over clients.?