Recently, I have had at least a dozen friends ask me if I have any tips for those interested in the venture capital industry. I’m obviously still new to the field and trying to learn more myself, but here are some resources that I have found helpful. This is not meant to be an authoritative, exhaustive or objective guide; just a convenient way for me to share some resources that I personally like. I will keep adding to the list as I discover more resources.

General things to know:

  • Most VCs didn’t plan on being a VC.
  • VC firms are most likely to hire when they raise a new fund.
  • VC firms don’t usually publicly post job openings for the investment team. The news usually spread within an enclosed network.
  • If you don’t like meeting, talking to, and learning from new people, VC probably isn’t for you.
  • Before you talk to any VC (or anyone in a professional setting), go to their website, familiarize with the portfolio and read everyone’s biography. It always pays to do your homework.

Helpful articles:

Tech news:

VC blogs:

There are so many of them out there. I’ll just recommend the classics:

Newsletters:

Podcasts:

For discovering new products:

Books:

If you’re a woman:

Published by Zara Zhang

Zara Zhang works at ByteDance in its Beijing office. Previously, she was an investment analyst at GGV Capital (first in the Menlo Park office, then in the Beijing office), a venture capital firm that invests in companies in the US, China, and other emerging markets. She has interned as a reporter covering China’s tech industry for The Information. Her writings have been published on The Harvard Crimson, Harvard Magazine, Foreign Policy, Huffington Post, and China Personified. She has also worked as a marketing intern at ZhenFund. Zara graduated from Harvard University Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in psychology. At Harvard, she wrote and edited for The Harvard Crimson, led the organization of Harvard China Forum (a 1,000-people conference featuring leaders from China and the US), and ran a weekly newsletter about food around the university. Zara grew up in Changchun, a city in northeast China, and received her secondary education in Singapore. A language enthusiast, she is trained in Chinese-English interpretation and translation, speaks French and Japanese, and can sing in Cantonese. Zara co-hosted “996”, a podcast where she and GGV managing partner Hans Tung interviewed leaders in US-China cross-border tech and entrepreneurship. Listen on iTunes, Overcast, Spotify, SoundCloud, or search “996” in any podcast app.

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