New Year, New Venture Gal

This week begins my second year as an Analyst at RPM Ventures (I started working at RPM full time the day after Labor Day in 2010).  A year went by so fast, and as I look back and reflect on that year I realize a few things:

1. I learned a lot!  Essentially I have been a sponge, soaking up as much information, knowledge, advice, perspective, as possible.
2. This blog has not been a useful tool in storing and sharing what I am learning.  More on this further along in this post.
3. Managing time in a job is not like managing time as a student.  

To elaborate on each of those points a bit more,

1.  I did learn a lot.  I look back and a year ago I would take a different approach to how I would evaluate companies, starting and building companies, raising capital, and other topics.  What I learned in school isn’t necessarily how it works in the real world, and I appreciate knowing a bit more about how the real world works.  I learned from projects, meetings, my day to day activities, as well as learned from feedback from the RPM team and others.  I could make a laundry list of all the different things I learned, but I realize that may be putting the cart before the horse, which brings me to point #2.

2.  This blog has not been what I set out for it to be, for me or my readers.  Yes, it’s been witty and featured some interesting and entertaining content from time to time, but it isn’t something that I feel I will go back to and reference when I want to remember what I learned about a particular subject.  Based on my own reflections and feedback from others, I have decided to take a new direction with Venture Gal, a “pivot” if you want to put some “Lean Startup jargon” to it.

One of the primary reactions I get when I tell people that I am an Analyst for a venture capital firm is “Cool…so what do you do?”

Let me ask you….do you know what an analyst for a venture capital firm does?

…

*crickets*

…

I sense a problem.  Who are these creatures who work with the well known venture capitalists?  What do we do?  I can’t speak for all, but I can give a glimpse into the life of a VC analyst from my perspective.

This also means more posts, less polished.  Rather than spend days marinating on a post topic and pulling it together very prime and polished, I may write 3 sentences at the end of a day, which may not bring any particular insights, but share a piece of my day.

3.  Time management skills are essential to productivity.  I’ve learned that managing my time as a student was much different than it is now.  When I was a student I practically owned my schedule.  Other than classes, which were set periods of time, I could study when I so desired, sleep, eat, workout, and control when I did those things.  Now, I am dependent on other peoples’ schedules and I must still get all of my work done.  I have experimented with different habits, methods, and tools for productivity, so here’s for a more productive 2nd year at RPM Ventures!

Venture on,

MEL aka Venture Gal

What Everyone Can Learn from Taylor Swift

Image via Wikipedia

Last weekend I went to a Taylor Swift concert in Detroit.  What I really like about her music is that her songs tell stories.  Relatable stories.  For instance, what girl did not know a girl that got so wrapped up into a guy in high school?!  And who hasn’t wanted to tell someone “you’re so mean!”?!

Taylor Swift is very talented and a great entertainer.  The concert was more than her music, which is good since I not only heard Taylor singing, but thousands of screaming high-pitched girls.  It was an entire production.  Since her songs tell stories, the set, background dancers, costumes all added to the story, making the songs performed more like an entire show.  I was also impressed by her genuineness.  She did seem truly happy to be there and appreciative of all the people that came.

Between the opening acts and Taylor, the screens next the stage streamed texts sent in from the audience.  There was a few common themes: inspiration, role model, love.

• Inspiration – many of the texts said Taylor inspired him/her to be a better singer and/or musician.
• Role model – parents thanked Taylor for being a great role model for their child.
• Love – not surprisingly there were the “TAYLOR I LOVE YOU MARRY ME” texts

I was left impressed during and after the show.  I also learned a few things that are not specifically targeted for musicians, entrepreneurs, or anyone in particular.  They are relevant to everyone:

• Do what you love.  To truly by successful at something you must have passion.  Taylor clearly loves what she does – it is apparent when she is on stage.  For the text messages people sent about Taylor inspiring him/her to be a better singer, songwriter, musician, that’s great.  But really Taylor should inspire people to pursue their passions, do what they love even when obstacles stand in the way.  Not everyone is going to pick up a guitar, love it, be amazing at it, and years later be performing in front of millions of people.  But everyone is capable of finding something that makes him/her tick, pursuing it, being amazing, and be recognized for it.  Find that.  Do that.  Thrive.

• Age is just a number.  Taylor is 21.  She started distributing her demo tape at age 11.  She was 17 when she released her debut single.  At 19, her second album debuted #1 on the Billboard charts and she became the youngest artist to win the CMA Entertainer of the Year Award.  These are the type of accomplishments that people often dream about.  Clearly age has not been the limiting factor for Taylor, nor should it be for anyone else.  Don’t use age as an excuse.

• Reflect.  It’s important to take time to yourself to reflect on life, discover more about yourself, your interests, and to get your mind off work, school, friends, whatever.  I think this is important for a couple reasons:  It helps in passion discovery.  Going through the motions day by day and keeping up with a fast paced lifestyle doesn’t leave much time for thinking about what you are doing and why you are doing it….unless you make time.  Spending time thinking about what you do, what you enjoy doing, what you want to do less of, what you want to do more of, and the like is time well spent.  It fuels creativity.  How long do you think it takes Taylor to write a song?  I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m guessing it’s a process, and takes more than 5 minutes of thinking about what to write about.  She must reflect on her experiences to package them into creativity crafted stories/songs.  There are other benefits to reflecting.  Individual results may vary so try it out for yourself.  Spend time focused on you.  

There you have it.  Lessons from a stadium full of screeching girls, their parents, spellbound guys, and me and my cronies.

Here’s a little something from the concert…