Day 13 Final Project (Last Day at CoreNetwork)

Today is my thirteenth day at CoreNetwork Fund, also my last day working at the firm. It has been a good independent study experience and I appreciate such an opportunity to learn about Venture Capital before going to college.

In the morning, Erik and I had a short meeting to talk about the wrap up for all the projects I have been working on. We focused on the implementation of HubSpot CRM for CoreNetwork. After the meeting, I had around 2 hours to explore and learn more about the functions of HubSpot. Then I gave Erik the login information and instructions on some basic steps of how to import data from excel and create different lists for different portfolio company. From now on, Erik could then continue using HubSpot as the new CRM for CoreNetwork, improving efficiency of contacting investors and keeping track of relations with different company’s investors.

Around lunch time, Bob took Erik and I out for lunch. We talked about what it is like to work in this industry and work/life balance. I always thought a person working in any finance (stock trader, VC, PE, investment banking) would not be able to do anything else other than working all day, not be able to stay in shape, and not be able to eat healthy. However, when I looked at Bob and Erik, they were both in a good shape, and Bob always had stories of traveling to tell. The secret was to use time wisely and do what is the most important for a person’s development. Erik said on weekdays, he went to bed early and got up at 5 A.M. everyday, prepared for his meals, worked out, and put full force to work while in office. On weekends, he put work aside to spend time with family and friends, to read, and to relax. I think this is a good lesson for me to learn to start managing my time wisely starting in college and practice selecting priorities for the long-term run.

After we went back to office, Erik asked me to import a list of all VC firms to CoreNetwork’s new CRM system. It was a 400+ rows x 10+ columns spreadsheet with information missing. Concerning that a direct important would result in “invalidate domain property”, I filled out a lot of the missing information by searching those companies. Two hours later, scrolling down the 400+ firms, I thought the list looked much more completed, so I started importing. However, only 53 got imported, and the error list showed that the software “cannot parse property in certain columns” Then I reviewed HubSpot’s import list requirements all over, and used some of the excel functions I have been learning to reorganize the sheet, making sure each column only had one category this time. Around 4:40 P.M., I importanted 90% of the list into HubSpot, and there were a few information that I could only type in one by one.

While wrapping up this project before I leave, I also found an interesting VC report. I got the report online and emailed to Erik as a gift, as he might be interested in reading.

Essentially, it is a report called Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2018, produced by Startup Genome, which help venture capitalists (but not limited only to this job) to understand startup ecosystems and the global network of capital and connections that drive them. The report is based on survey responses from emerging global technology companies, providing analysis of the specific factors that influence and promote the startup ecosystems.

To give more context about this report, this fresh idea comes from three students--Bjoern Lasse Herrmann, Max Marmer, and another student--back in 2011, who realized that the startup rate was so low that they believed those startups must not have gotten all the understanding how startup worked and did not have all the insights they needed to promote their innovative products. Therefore, they did research and came up with a database in 2012, in which could measure, analyze, and compare startups in real-time, using different metrics to increase the precision. This database helps startups better understand the market and what their competitors were already doing while they are trying to enter the market.

After giving a glance through the 242 page report, I emailed it to Erik, who later appreciated this gift. I thought when I am free, I would give it a read just to explore what the report is about and what information could be drawn to help VCs better identify the dark horses among new startups. By the end of today, cumulating every day’s learning, I have reached my overall goal of learning how VC works. By working more on the excel sheets and looking at different columns, I learned identifying key criterias that VC use to evaluate companies (Goal 1). As for Goal 2, with all the experience working on the CRM project, I understand what is the process of a VC deal is more specifically from the standpoint of customer relation management.

A picture of Erik, me, and Bob