120. Think like a Venture Capitalist to have a great career

"The business strategies employed by highly successful start-ups and the career strategies employed by highly successful individuals are strikingly similar," says Reid Hoffman in his book The Startup of You.

• VC premise 1: technology is a tool that solves a problem
  • Ask yourself: what problems is your industry facing now? What problems are you dealing with on day-to-day basis?
• VC Premise 2: the problem must be important enough to solve
  
  • Even if the problem exists, it might not be important enough to solve.
  • This is why, you need to think: where is the biggest money drain? Where is the biggest productivity drain?
• VC premise 3: Invest in the future, not in the now
  

  • VCs are not investing in today. They are investing in years and even decades ahead. Let's use the same approach to your career.

  • Does your industry or the company you are working at look promising? Make a plan for how to adjust for future changes. Making a career change always takes longer than we want.

• VC premise 4: diversify your assets
  • This means doing well in your current role well, and also getting involved with other projects.

  • One of the best ways to do this is to get involved with start-ups, because this helps you understand how innovation works in practice and gives you fresh ideas.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Speak Tech: the top 10 tech concepts for business leaders (FREE GUIDE)
• Non-Technical Founders Don't Need to Cod‪e‬ - Sophia's podcast interview with Alexandra Zubko, 3 x tech founder
• 74. How I got to the top in tech - Sophia's podcast interview with Jennifery Byrne, ex CTO Microsoft US

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