SEEK truth early

Or how I thought I wanted to become a venture capital backed entrepreneur.

6 weeks into joining one of the world's most active early-stage investors, a tech start-up accelerator, I realised that that world was not for me. Never say never but not now, thank you.

The first 4 weeks have been a massive learning curve, with ChatGPT becoming my trusted silent buddy I kept bombarding with questions such as "What is a LLM?", "What is Stealth?", "Who is Layla?" and so on and so forth.

It has also been the most intense socializing context I have ever been in - meeting almost 80 like minded people, finding about their interests and backgrounds, bouncing off ideas, validating hypostasis, investigating hunches + meals, drinks and games day in and out. Face to Face. Daily.

It was a completely different, new and bubbly world. Exactly what I wanted after getting out of a structured, predictable and very familiar corporate context. I loved it. Outside the times in which I felt it was too much.

And then the scalability session came when the numbers on the slide called "How scalable should you be aiming (for your business)?" broke my brain. Just for reference and for exercises purposes the bar was set on 6 digit revenue per day in 7 years. Welcome to the VC world I said to myself. I realized instantly that all the ideas I potentially had/could have where nowhere near a VC fit business. And that actually, I was not even energized by the idea of finding something that can get close to those aspirations. It was a great first wake up call about what scalability in a VC world actually means. #truth1revealed

The second truth I came to realize in week 5 during a team session and while attending the first ideas pitches was that, ones interest, passion and drive to explore an area that was out of his/hers direct experience, knowledge or environment is less credible for pre-seed investment companies. Just because they rather put a bet (aka investment) in someone who has walked the talk, knows the insides outs of a problem space and ideally has had direct experience in that are. The VC founder fit check has much more credibility this way. And I can't argue that. But for me, being in the midst of changing career direction this approach of sticking to my "spike" (my industry, background, expertise) was not helping. If anything it was dragging me back into stay in "your current line". And that's not what I want for now especially if I would start my own business. #truth2revealed

And with those 2 lessons under my belt, I decided to step out of the cohort and continue my exploration. I am truly grateful for all the people that I met there, for all the knowledge and experience that I have gained and am super curious to see where I will put it to practice. And when :)

#andradaunfolding#careerchange#careeraligning#careertransitioning#entrepreneur#entrepreneurworld#VCstartup#startup