One More Thing

A while ago, on my old(er) blog, I wrote a post called Ten Things I Miss About Cambridge, in which I wax nostalgic about all the things I missed since I moved to New York from Cambridge, MA, the town in which I went to college. I love the energy and intensity of New York and I highly suggest that everyone spend at least a couple of years living in the area if they have the chance, for an experience they will not find in the rest of the US. My New York experience, however, comes to a close for now, as I move (back) to the Boston area in January and begin a new job as a junior investment professional at Longworth Venture Partners.

One of the best pieces of advice I received from my high school principal was to always think of what’s next, be it in my life, my career or any other of my pursuits. Onescore and four months ago, I switched careers from being a software developer on Wall Street and became an enterprise software industry analyst at The 451 Group. When I became an industry analyst, I had way too little operational experience that would inform my career in the field effectively. After all, there are few things worse than an uninformed cynic. As luck would have it, I happened to break into a unique firm like The 451 Group, which is truly doing some great work in the industry analyst industry with its eye on emerging technologies, startups and its connections into the investor community. After getting my bearings in my new role as an analyst, it dawned on me that the next step in my career, which would give me additional operational experience, should be either at a technology vendor or a technology investor.

My role at The 451 Group has by far been my favorite job to date for three big reasons: the wonderful people I work with, the kind of work I do and the sheer amount I have learned about how the high technology industry works. I’ve always tried to be around people smarter than me so that I can learn from them and it has truly been an honor to work with my fellow analysts at The 451 Group. My work as an industry analyst fits my preferred working style very well–short, well-defined, intensive projects with considerable variety. I’ve personally come to value breadth of knowledge over depth of knowledge in any given domain because I figure I can always delve deep into a specific topic (or draw upon the specialized knowledge of smart people) if need be. For all these exact reasons, a career forward as a tech investor rather than at a tech vendor seemed the best step to take.

Longworth Venture Partners is an early-stage technology venture capital firm, whose past successes have included Softricity and Constant Contact. The firm closed its third fund of $180m this summer and is actively looking to invest in infrastructure software, mobile/wireless and online content companies. The firm is big enough to have healthy deal flow but small enough that I’ll have much to learn about the venture investing process.

Venture capital is a line of work I’ve always eyed with keen interest and I’m delighted and thankful to receive this opportunity. As glamorous as venture capital may seem though, it is extraordinarily hard to identify what exactly makes one an effective venture investor. Even if I find that I don’t have that secret sauce, this path opens up several opportunities, be it in entrepreneurial circles, senior operating roles or investment circles.

I’ll miss New York and all my friends and associates here. I know the New York startup community has a lot of promise from my own interactions with it. Longworth is active in New York and other East Coast entrepreneurial communities, so I’m sure I will be no stranger to New York. If you are an entrepreneur and would like to bounce ideas off me, you know where to reach me.

On the brighter side, I look forward to reexperiencing the Boston area (this time not as a broke college student), reveling in all the things I now miss about Cambridge, and perhaps discovering other things to miss and write about in future posts. So, here’s to venturing into capitalism!