UPDATE – POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED. THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST!
About Primary Venture Partners
Primary is an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City, run by Ben Sun and Brad Svrluga, who combined have a 30-year track record as investors and operators in the NYC Tech scene. We primarily invest in two sectors: ecommerce and SaaS. We focus on startups based in NYC and strive to be one of the most valuable and trusted partners to our portfolio companies.
Opportunity: Investment Associate – Ecommerce
The Investment Associate will be working with General Partner Ben Sun, who is responsible for our Ecommerce investments. For us, these are transaction monetization businesses and companies that help with that enablement. Ben’s previous notable investments include Coupang.com (Amazon of South Korea), Jet.com, MakeSpace (NY’s #1 storage services company), Maple, PSDept and Greats.
What will you do as our Investment Associate?
- Lead New Deal Investment Opportunities – We review hundreds of opportunities per year and ONLY invest in 6 to 8 new deals annually for the entire firm. As our associate, you will be leading our deal sourcing and vetting process. Many of our deals are inbound from entrepreneurs, referrals from other investors, operators and people in our network (lawyers, service providers, etc.). However, being great at getting deal flow is a result of your own hustle. You need to network with other VCs and operators in order to hear about companies that we should be meeting with. Being active in social media and sharing your thoughts to generate attention from entrepreneurs is a key element of the role. You will also be actively attending industry events and meet ups. You will be working autonomously, and constantly figuring out how to find the next great opportunity for us to invest in. Driving the top of the funnel is one thing. You also have to figure out if the investment opportunity is a great one. You need to be constantly researching and learning in order to develop your own framework to determine what companies we should invest in. Much of that framework is learning the key factors and insights that have made companies in our sector successful and how that may apply to companies we see. What was so special about that product market fit? What marketing dynamic allowed that company to acquire customers at scale with amazing efficiency? How did that company build a moat to ward off competition? How do you find this out? To get the real key insights, you need to network with people deep in the industry: investors, operators, and thought leaders. How do you get to them? You have to hustle. No one is going to hold your hand. You need to figure it out yourself.
- Provide Support to our Portfolio Companies – Once you make some new investments, you’ll feel like you are awesome. And then you realize that to actually be awesome, your start-up companies need to be massively successful. Your job has just begun. How do you support them? You will work with a handful of our portfolio companies in figuring out how to solve operational problems by leveraging our Operating Partner Network. Whether it is better using Facebook for marketing acquisition or developing the right way to predict LTV, we have people in our Operating Partner Network (and if they aren’t in our network, you need to find them) who are operating experts and specialists that can help. Your job is to work with our portfolio companies and connect them with the best resources in our network. You also support them by helping them plan their next fundraise, getting competitive intel, lining up intros to other VCs, and bringing donuts every once in a while, because everyone loves donuts.
- Fund Administration – The work is not all rainbows and unicorns. We do have administrative work like preparing reports and analysis for our Limited Partner/Investors. It’s not the most fun and sexy part of the job, but it has to get done and get done well. But don’t worry, someone else will be cleaning the bathrooms.
Do you think you would be an awesome associate? If so, here’s how your mom should describe you:
- You figure sh*t out and can work independently. We don’t need to hold your hand to figure out what you have to do next.
- Hustle is your middle name. Need to get to an answer or try to get something done? You will make that cold call. You will ask for that favor. You will bust down that door. You do what it takes!
- You are a voracious learner, meaning that you love understanding how companies become successful. You enjoy mining for those insights and talking about them. Learning about them gives you a rush. Every time other VCs and entrepreneurs meet you they always say, “Damn! [Insert your name here] knows their sh-t!”
- You have a real interest in Ecommerce and that means more than just having an Amazon Prime account!
- Ideally, you worked at a startup, especially in a product or marketing role at an Ecommerce company. What would make you an even better fit is if you also spent some time in a job like investment banking or consulting, because that shows that you have done some broader strategic and industry work. An MBA at a great school is a good thing. You are a great mix of knowing the details of how a startup works because you worked at one, but you can also do the bigger picture work.
- You are not an a—hole. You might be a superstar genius, but if people don’t always refer to you as a “really nice person” then you definitely don’t belong here. We need to like you, and so do all of your contacts.
Email me your resume or LinkedIn Profile link at: ben@primary.vc
Ah-ha 2.0 