As I have continued to get older, and watched my age cohort becoming more successful, I occasionally encounter people who have made a lot of money in an unrelated field, and now want to become an investor. Naturally they ask me for my advice on investing like a venture capitalist. (A prominent subset of these people are interested in “impact investing”, eg not doing it for the financial return but to help others or some other goal – I’ll touch on this aspect as well towards the end.)
Similar to my advice on trying to get a job as a VC, my answer is: don’t. But if you have to, it turns out there are actually some pretty good heuristics you can use. Let’s dive in. [Read more…]
