Select Work Experience

As a Venture Capital Analyst Intern, I had exposure to the entire VC life-cycle including LP outreach, sourcing companies, and deal due diligence. 

Initially, I took a research-focused role as I broke down the CPG, Agriculture, Fintech, and Blockchain industries into comprehensive reports for the partners at the fund. I learned how to perform thoughtful market and positioning analyses to better contextualize investment ideas. Eventually, I started directly screening companies and eventually interviewed several founders to understand investment-readiness. 

Working at Santa Clara Ventures was a great way to boost my network and understanding of the Silicon Valley startup scene. The fund is directly tied to a university-based accelerator and I have had the chance to meet many amazing founders and operators. Here, I also gained experience with helping set up and manage physical events for founders.

Uniquely, due to my prolonged stint, I saw cyclical shifts in emerging markets especially with AI and Web3 which I believe will make me a more disciplined investor in the future.

Tags Commerce was an eCommerce-empowering SaaS with enterprise and consumer-facing elements. Tags distributes commerce omnichannel to reduce checkout friction and increase brand loyalty. 

As the first intern at the company, I had the amazing opportunity to see a startup being built at the ground level. As is the case with most startups, I wore many hats and adapted to changing product, market, investor, and customer needs. I spent the majority of my time on go-to-market initiatives and collaborated heavily with a partnered media agency. I strategized and rolled out many campaigns to highlight customer success stories as well as product value propositions. As I gained tenure, I eventually managed a contract employee and ran our entire B2B sales outreach. Additionally, I led internal meetings and initiatives to drive a community and strategic direction. I also helped meet with and create curated deliverables for investors before eventually closing a $3.5m pre-seed round of venture funding.

This was a unique role as I essentially had to build my own workstream every single day. I was able to adapt to this ambiguity and plug myself into wherever I was needed to maximize my value. Tags was as close as I have gotten to the "prototypical tech startup" where everyone is boots on the ground and driving towards a unified mission. I worked alongside every function there is and learned how to communicate effectively with people of all roles and seniorities. 

This experience ultimately highlighted entrepreneurship and investing as career paths that I had a passion for.