We dive deep into our sectors. Our research drives our insights and thesis-driven approach.

We’re looking to bring on an intern focused on writing and editing firm-specific content on industry deep dives, business and technology strategy, early-stage investing and entrepreneurship. The content intern will work closely with the Equal team to create a library of articles based on internal research projects including our “prepared mind” thesis memos, startup strategy frameworks and venture market research. These articles will be shared across Equal’s network and social channels over the rest of the year. This internship will also include unique exposure to the investment thesis development process.

One of our core values at Equal Ventures is to have a “prepared mind” and I often get asked “what does that actually mean?”. For us, a prepared mind is an informed point of view on a space, industry and/or business model that enables us to be additive partners to the founders we work with. We develop this point of view by 1) focusing on the spaces we think are most impactful to our thesis, 2) broadly researching (qualitatively and quantitatively) those spaces on a continuous basis, and 3) developing “prepared mind deep-dives” on individual ideas we find most exciting (see here for a redacted version of our “prepared mind deep dive” that we did on the commercial energy efficiency market prior to investing in David Energy).

We’re kicking off our summer 2021 MBA intern recruiting process and this year we’re looking to bring on a few team members with previous experience across 3 of our core focus areas: Insurance, Supply Chain / Logistics, & Climate / Energy. Our summer interns work with our investment team to research specific industry themes and analyze investment opportunities in support of our thesis-driven approach.

In October, we announced the kick-off of our Operators-in-Residence program, a 4 month-long, part-time leadership development program for high potential operators. The Equal OIR program focuses on peer-based learning for high potential startup operators. This group gains exposure to our research, strategy and operational methodologies across 4 months with the goal of accelerating their development as leaders in the startup ecosystem. Meeting monthly, OIRs discuss these topics as a group and identify ways that they can apply these concepts to the businesses they are working with or on. The group provides a trusted peer community (something that we believe is really valuable to founders and investors alike), where these operators can get feedback on ideas and how to navigate different aspects of their career.

When Rich and I were starting Equal Ventures, there was a lot we didn’t know about starting a venture fund. Scarier than that was that we didn’t know, what we didn’t know. The prospect of starting a new venture fund is both exciting and terrifying. Each of us had significant track records with our prior firms, but starting and running a great firm is a lot different than simply investing in great companies.