Wait a second! You are telling me that someone will pay me to be looking at new technologies and startups the whole day, trying to find the next big thing? No way!”
– Me, couple of months ago probably
It all started with the beginning of 2020. I can still remember that New Year’s Eve celebration, where I ended up with my friends in a beautiful bar in Prague and telling them confidently that the upcoming years are going to be our “roaring 20s” just like it was in the previous century, and how we are destined to achieve great things in the coming decade.
Needless to say none of these things happened as Corona came knocking on our roaring 20s, locking all of us up. But my story begins even before corona’s arrival into Europe, as since the beginning of the year, I could not shake that feeling that I was leading a pretty pointless life.
See, up until then, I was basically chasing what school brainwashed me to believe was important when I first joined that institution as a 4 year old. I kept chasing good grades, making sure I finish on top of my class, collecting a portfolio of extracurricular activities, which was solely driven by the pressure of competition without ever stopping to ask myself, if I am even competing for a worthy goal.
Having no answer to that question terrified me and forced me to take one semester off from my post-graduate education to figure out what I actually want to do with my life! It was not an easy quest but I finally felt the stars were aligned, when I discovered there was a job out there, where you get to spend your time living in the future, seeing how our world is being shaped, how new technologies are being developed, and you get to participate in that by making sure great start-ups get funded!
It felt like that moment when Harry Potter finally got to read his Hogwarts acceptance letter. On one hand, I could not contain my excitement that this magical world actually existed. On the other hand, I could not stop thinking, why did the muggles keep hiding it from me for so long?!
Long story short, I joined Senovo in August this year and although I was a little bit worried that my dreams might end up shattered on the rocks of reality, when I actually start working I must say, the past couple of months have been pretty much a bliss; I got to experience a pretty steep learning curve, got exposed to very cool ideas left and right(also very boring ones, we will get to that later) and a chance to meet very interesting people.
That’s why I decided to kick-off this series of articles to share the things I learn along the way, which I hope it can help you, dear reader, in one of the following ways:
- If you are considering a career in VC, then you can get a better overview about the daily life for an entry job in VC
- If you are a fellow newbie in VC then hopefully the things I learn can help you propel your career
- If you are a first time founder with many questions that experienced VCs might regard as “common sense”, then hopefully this is going to be your “VC for dummies” answering all the basic questions you have about how VCs work, what they are looking for in startups, and how you can make a good first impression as we explore this world together
- If you are a technologist, I will try to cover the most impressive technologies/industry trends I come across specially in the German market
Lastly, I am pretty sure that on my journey I will make a lot of mistakes and it is my hope that by constantly documenting my experience and sharing it with others, I can help you avoid as many pitfalls as possible. It would also be quite interesting for me to look back 10 years from now and see how my ideas and opinions developed. You know how embarrassed you feel when you look at your high school posts on facebook? I assume this experiment is going to be my intellectual equivalent for that in 10 years 😄 So buckle up and let’s dive into the world of VC, I hope you will learn as much as I do! 🚀 🚀
Omar Hedeya 