A journey through

Venture Capital & Entrepreneurship

Charlie Paradis, Harvard/San Francisco

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Introduction

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Charlie Paradis | Curious Cardinals Mentor

• Cognitive Science + Economics
• Took a year off to work in Venture Capital
• Semi-professional in Spikeball
• cparadis@college.harvard.edu

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

What is a startup?

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

What is a startup?

• Startups are companies that solve some [hard, as of now satisfactorily addressed] problem for a customer and have the goal of very rapid growth
• You need to: talk to users to figure out the nature of the problem, find a business model that aligns stakeholders and makes profit, and do this all within a large, rapidly growing market

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Startups are exciting

• Path to creating genuine value in the world, solving a problem you care about at massive scale if you succeed
• As a founder and entrepreneur, you need to love to problem you’re working on first and foremost
• Startups are also very hard - building out everything from nothing, and need everyone to convince customers, potential hires, and investors to be excited about your idea

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

What is Venture Capital?

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

What is Venture Capital?

• Startups need to raise money from VC firms to operate and grow their companies. In return, VC firms own equity in the company
• VC’s invest in the private market in companies at their earliest stages
• VC is a form of private equity
• A VC takes on an active, not passive, roll
• Primary goal is to max returns by exits

​

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Why venture capital?

• Adjacent to entrepreneurship, private equity
• Learn about a diverse group of industries and companies
• Talk to people and meet talented founders
• Evaluate startups and place bets on their success
• Freedom-- you get what you make of it

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Exercise: Starting a Firm

How would you go about starting a VC firm?

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Starting a Firm

• Founders must be accomplished
• Wealthy-- investing in firm themselves
• ~1% of total fund
• Ambitious to fundraise / upstand a firm

​

​

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Money Comes From Limited Partners (LPs)

• LPs include institutional investors (corporations, pension funds, universities, fund of funds, etc.) and family offices / high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs).
• General Partners (GPs) leverage their personal network and pitch the firm
• Selling points include the partner’s background, firm expertise, investment criteria (stage, sector, geography) and specifications of terms.
• Venture capital is treated as a sub-asset class of private equity that falls under "Alternative Assets."

​

​

​

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Limited Partners (LPs)

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Investing

• Funds (Fund I, Fund II, etc.)
• VC is divided into rounds
• Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B, etc
• Sourcing
• Due Diligence

​

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Limited Partners (LPs)

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

etc...

Limited Partners (LPs)

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Exercise: Hot Takes

How would you go about starting a VC firm?

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS

Final Questions?

PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL

CURIOUS CARDINALS • STAY CURIOUS