First of all, let’s get one thing out of the way. Venture capital (VC) is a part of finance, and as a part of a VC firm’s investment team, you share the responsibility to decide where money flows and which startups get funded. But as we’ll explain later, VC, especially when it comes to young and unproven firms, is less about numbers and more about many other aspects of life. In this funky business, you don’t need a degree in finance to succeed. What you need first and foremost is an extraordinary degree of curiosity and tenacity. So no matter what you’re studying, if it’s humanities, sciences, engineering or something else, you should consider VC as a potential career. Verve Ventures has a large and very diverse team (check out our team page and read the interviews with our colleagues), and is actively looking for candidates with non-conformist backgrounds.

What you do need, however, is a deep fascination with technology and a hunger to understand how technologies shape our society. You will be at the forefront of scientific developments and get exposed to teams that try to expand what is technically feasible. Verve Ventures is a very active deep tech investor, which is a fancy way of saying that we finance complicated stuff. We don’t expect you at this point to understand how neuromodulation works, or why quantum computing hardware needs cooling, or how autonomous drones find their way home. But you should want to, and be able to absorb this information rapidly, and find dealing with such matters as fascinating as we do. You will talk to plenty of people who have a Ph.D. in these and even more obscure topics, and you need to be able to ask them pertinent questions. Life-long learning sounds nice, but working in a deep tech VC firm means studying literally every form of science you can think of in a supercharged way. And get paid for that.

But it is not just about technology. You need to understand people, get along with them well and have a good grasp of their motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. Every VC will tell you that a strong founding team is one of the most important success factors of a startup. This is true. Hence, you need to quickly develop the ability to read people in order to ascertain if they have what it takes to take their business to the next level: Grit, determination, and resilience.

If you’re still reading, the business side is as important as the technology side. We don’t finance cool inventions. We’re looking for scientific excellence that can be transformed into products that customers will actually pay for. You’ll need to understand these customers, and the specific problems they face, and how a startup’s product will solve them. You need to see the difference between products that are nice to have, and those that are a must-have. You will call potential customers to find out if they would buy it, who makes the buying decision, and how long such a decision will take. You’ll judge the merits of a product or service against the current state-of-the-art, and against competing technologies that might still be in their infancy. You will need to ascertain the business model of a startup that wants its potential customers to buy a subscription for drone services instead of selling the drones outright to them. If you’re a business student, you will already know the difference between capital expenditure and operating expenses. If not, you’ll quickly learn.

A word of caution from our colleague and investment manager Thomas: “Venture capital has become a career path that seems to be cool. This starts to attract people with a superficial interest in the topic, which isn’t enough. You need to be obsessed with learning and digging deeper than the mainstream. You also need to have clear judgment and identify rapidly where the issues with a startup’s plans may lie. Don’t just ask about the technology they’re developing, if that’s what fascinates you, and in the same vein, don’t just talk about the business model without identifying technological risks. You need to keep all aspects in mind to develop a conviction about why you would invest in a certain company or not, and you need to be able to defend this position against a lot of pushback from your colleagues. You must think fast, and clear. In investing, there is no maybe.”

So you’re fascinated by scientific breakthroughs and by novel business models? And the perspective of working with a large international team where you learn as much from your colleagues as from all the different interactions with incredibly driven and talented founders that you will have every day? Then you might ask yourself, what is the career path that this industry offers, how do I best prepare for such a role and what are you looking for in a candidate?

The first entry point at our firm is the role of a visiting analyst. You’ll find more information about this program on this page, and a first-hand account of a former visiting analyst here. This paid 6-month internship is a good first stepping stone in the venture capital industry – Verve’s alumni are all over the place. Other firms offer similar roles, of course. But it’s fair to say that there are more bright young talents interested in entering this field than there are entry-level positions, which means that you need to stand out.

But how?

Good grades from a top university are a plus, but they’re not the only and not even the main thing our hiring managers will consider. Prior formal work experience is also not a prerequisite, but some sort of “work” or project you already should have done, no matter what it is. “We’re looking for people who know how to roll up their sleeves”, says our colleague Romeo, Principal responsible for hiring.

Again, don’t worry if your experience is wildly different from the world of investing. Did you help out in your parents’ business on the weekends? That’s good. You did do project work for an NGO? Very good. You built something useful or playful in your spare time, sold stuff online, worked as a freelancer or even built a small business? Perfect. Anything that shows you’re not afraid to put in some work, pursue a passion and take a bit of risk is appreciated. Romeo explains that he puts a lot of emphasis on candidates’ extracurricular activities. He wants to see proof that someone is willing to go the extra mile, and shows passion and humbleness. It’s also not easy to identify this solely based on a CV, but there are certain indicators. For example, if you excel at sports or music on a high level, which necessitates a lot of dedication. Or if you were active in a student group, or even founded one. Or if you were a scout, or in any other form of a youth movement. No matter how exotic your hobby may seem, we’ll be impressed by it if it shows a high degree of focus and motivation, or your likeability and social skills. Even as a visiting analyst, you’ll be a full member of the team and represent our company to the outside world and entrepreneurs in particular. This means you should be very approachable and helpful.

If you have already done internships in the past, that’s a plus, especially when you have already worked for startups and experienced the challenges they face firsthand. In case you’re wondering how to find an internship at one of our portfolio companies, check out our page dedicated to this topic. Don’t hesitate to write to a startup about why you absolutely want to do an internship with them even if they don’t have such a position on their website.

As the last point, a few hints on how to prepare for an interview at Verve. It might be useful knowledge also for landing an internship at other VCs.

Start thinking like a VC today. What is the most promising technology out there and why? Why did startups succeed or fail in the past, and what can be learned from these examples? Read about the basics of venture capital. Some VCs are prolific publishers of information (they especially like writing “Why we invested in X” articles, which should teach you how they think). We’re following a different approach, but you still might want to read our blog, sign up to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn.

When you get to that stage, our colleagues will present you with a situation that will correspond very much to a regular day of work as a visiting analyst at Verve later. (Hint: You might want to start studying pitch decks.) This job consists of asking questions to better understand a startup, and try to identify its strengths and weaknesses. Your goal is to get a picture that is as complete as possible, so try to think not only about the information at hand but also about the information that might be missing. Read up on the different factors that made startups successful, and what led other companies to fail.

Venture capital, especially at an early stage, isn’t an exact science. It is a job for people that show tenacity, and curiosity and have a lot of imagination that is grounded in economic realities. At Verve, it’s the diversity of our team that contributes to better decisions. If you don’t understand the technical terms of the business (yet), rest assured that you can and will learn these on your job. You also shouldn’t worry if you conform to the mental picture of an investor that you might have in mind – most of us don’t, and we value diversity more than conformity.

Venture capital, we’re convinced, is one of the most intense and rewarding careers for people that like to think differently and have an insatiable thirst for knowledge.

If that sounds like you, we’re looking forward to getting to know you.