Dear SaaStr: What Is The Job of a Venture Capital Fund Manager?
Ultimately, the job is to beat Nasdaq by at least 20%. Otherwise, their own investors (the LPs) should just invest in … Nasdaq. It’s liquid and full of great tech companies!
Net net, this means returning at least 3x the capital they are given to invest.
Now what does the job look like?
Roughly:
- Source new investments. Maybe 15%-20% of time.
- Support existing investments, serve on boards, etc. Maybe 20%-25% of time.
- Fundraise themselves to raise new funds, and meet with existing investor (LPs). Maybe 15% of time, but peaky.
- Internal meetings, admin, recruiting. Probably 15%-20% of time. Usually most of an entire day of the week in bigger funds (often most of Monday), plus other times during the week.
So meeting new startups is just part of it.
