Originally written for the Hamilton College business connect newsletter in response to a series of questions geared towards current college students. I graduated from Hamilton in 2007.
Being an investor was never something I planned to do. I’d never even heard the phrase “venture capital” while I was at Hamilton. Actually, the first time I remember it was from the movie The Wedding Crashers with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn: the two of them show up at weddings with believably self-important cover stories like “we’re two brothers from New Hampshire and we’re venture capitalists.” It was the kind of job title that made my younger self’s eyes glaze over. But now that I’m here, I realize how fascinating, impactful, and unique a career it is.
My path in brief: relevant hobbies throughout my life (video gaming, podcasting, blogging), plus psychology/English undergrad degrees at Hamilton → JD from UConn Law → working at multiple venture-backed startups → non-investment job at VC firm → investment job at VC firm.
A typical day for me might look like this:
- Wake up early and do a 45-minute run. It clears my head, calms me down, and preps me for an extremely busy day.
- Get into the office and have a 15-minute standup with my team. Everyone briefly shares what they’re working on that week.
- At least an hour of partner meetings with my investor co-workers where we talk about new companies we’re thinking about investing in, existing companies we’ve backed that have updates or need help, technology concepts or trends we’re tracking, interesting experts we’re meeting that week, and outbound activities that will help us find new, exceptional founders.
- A call with a board member and fellow investor in a company we’ve backed around that company’s executive team dynamics: who’s performing well, and who we’re worried about.
- A coffee meeting with a founder building an AI app for fitness training and coaching.
- Another coffee meeting with a female VP of Engineering at a pillar Boston company who’s feeling the itch to quit and start her own company.
- A call with one of my co-workers’ companies’ CEO and a board member on an HR crisis…
