🎓How being an LP in VC Syndicates Landed me my First VC Position

a newsletter about VC syndicates

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Alex Pattis & Zachary Ginsburg
September 20, 2023

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🎓How being an LP in VC Syndicates Landed me my First VC Position

Before I (Zachary Ginsburg) ever branched off and started my own syndicate (or worked as a paid investor for that matter), I spent several years as an LP in other VC syndicates, initially joining several of the OG syndicates like 500 Fintech, Hack VC, Sundeep Ahuja, Joey Krug’s and Riverside Ventures, among others.

The recommendation to join the syndicate ecosystem as an LP in the first place came from a friend who saw one of the hottest web3 deals available in 2017/2018 being run by one of the aformentioned GPs. I had spent the prior several years working in banking as an analyst/associate, where we also raised a small growth fund, and so the timing happened to coincide well with my interest in getting into the venture ecosystem.

Over the course of 2018, I would end up investing in well over a dozen startups as an LP including one Seed stage company that is worth an estimated $8B today and another that SPAC’d in 2022 (I thought I would be making 10x+, but it RIP’d real quickly).

At the time I had just started an MBA at Columbia, but candidly slowly realized I didn’t need an MBA to break into VC and ended up dropping out to intern at a VC syndicate Wild Ventures (WV), where I got a front row seat to how a world class syndicate operates.

I ended up getting this first experience as an LP in his syndicate. At the time, I was four months into my startup investing journey as an LP and was specifically interested in the health and wellness industry, and was looking for syndicates that were targeting those companies. WV was the main one in this space with early investments into Mark Sisson’s Primal Kitchen (acquired by Kraft for $200M), Kettle & Fire (followed on by CAVU Ventures), SteadyMD (followed on by Lux Capital), and later on LMNT, Magic Spoon and others.

At the time I had spent the last few years in a total health kick and wanted more direct exposure to the space. I reached out cold after seeing a few of his deals, and ultimately ended up joining him for a couple of months.

Just by being a member of this syndicate ecosystem - building up a portfolio of compelling investments, bridging access, learning - I was able to get a very quick entry into VC. Please excuse the what now feels cringe email I wrote years ago above.

As I recruited into full time VC roles, what always stood out and frankly got me the bulk of my interviews, including the internship at WV prior, was my personal investing portfolio. Yes I had some investment banking experience and now a VC internship, but it was extremely rare for prospective VC candidates to have a portfolio of 20+ startups investment at my age, and who could speak to their personal investments on a level of detail.

Around three months into recruiting for full time roles I got two full time job offers – both at growth equity funds. While it takes a lot more than a portfolio of personal investments to get a VC role, I’m nearly positive I wouldn’t have gotten many of these interviews without my personal startup portfolio as it was almost always one of the first topics of conversations in my interviews.

So why are we writing a post about this? Well, one of the most common questions I get is how to break into VC. If you’ve spent any amount of effort recruiting in this ecosystem, you’ll know VC is not one size fits all nor does it have a single candidate archetype like private equity tends to (the ex-banker).

But irrespective of your background (consulting, founder, banker, engineer), one quality that’s required for a VC is validated interest in the ecosystem. Even though I wasn’t really doing the VC job as an LP in other syndicates – I was also kind of doing the job or at least I could position it that way.

So how exactly was I able to leverage my LP experience into a full time VC role:

  • My resume stood out because it had several notable startups as part of my personal portfolio. While there are hundreds of individuals recruiting with strong backgrounds (banking, consulting, engineering), there were almost none that had a large startup portfolio

  • I validated an interest in VC by being perceived as doing the job before I ever had the job as evidenced by my personal investment portfolio

  • Naturally, as an LP in other people’s syndicates, you read a lot more about the space, the company and different industries. As an LP, when I saw a deal I liked I not only read the materials and the GP’s thesis, but tried to understand the industry, the dynamics, the optimal business models, the comps, etc. There is a lot of compounding learning that happens just from participating in some small capacity.

  • You get familiar with all types of deal structures. SAFEs, convertible notes, SAFTs, preferred/common equity, secondaries, etc. and that led me to read a lot more about deal structure in venture via books like Venture Deals.

  • Ultimately with your own capital at the table as an LP you want to get better so you can make more money. To an earlier point, this naturally leads to more learning. I mentioned reading Venture Deals, but I also then read Angel by Jason Calacanis, Zero to One by Peter Thiel, Secrets of Sandhill Road by Scott Kupor and would listen to podcasts and read blogs of the best VCs in the business, constantly. I became consumed in the ecosystem by having skin in the game.

If it's not clear already, if you’re interested in becoming a VC and qualify as an accredited investor, I recommend joining other VC syndicates as an LP. Even if it's just for learning. I have seen well over a dozen people already who started out as an LP of other syndicates go on to become either full-time into venture or become syndicate GPs themselves because of the learning and positioning available just from being an LP.

I’ll include Alex and my syndicates below:

This is the reality: there are an endless number of resources to learn about VC, but there are few (or perhaps zero) other opportunities today that provide prospective VC investors the ability to 1) evaluate best in class venture deals daily/weekly, 2) learn on a deal by deal basis how 20-50+ top VC scouts and/or GPs think, and 3) build skin in the game and a portfolio of startups other than the syndicate ecosystem.

Many VC employers will say the best way to stand out as a candidate is to do the job before you get the job and becoming an LP is one of the best ways to “begin” to do that.

Here are additional resources for those looking to break into venture:

So even if you’re just entering the VC ecosystem, don’t discount the access or learning available today. Get involved, because three years from now, you can be launching your own firm.  

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Sydecar is a frictionless deal execution platform for emerging venture investors. We make it easy for anyone to launch SPVs and funds in minutes, with automated banking, compliance, contracts, tax, and reporting so that customers can focus on making deals and building relationships.

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✍️ Written by Zachary and Alex