34th Street: How did you decide to go into venture capital?
Stephanie Weiner: Well, I started a company, and it was really hard and I worked for a startup and it was really hard....It made me realize that yes, I want to work at a startup. Yes, I want to start my own company, but working in ventures is a good thing to do first because it’s almost like a crash course. I think of it as grad school for startups.
Street: So, you work for Bain as a venture capitalist. What exactly do you do?
SW: My work is really divided into thirds. So, the first third is deciding which startups are cool and that we should invest in them. And then another third is getting to know those companies and meeting with them. And then the final third is helping those companies (once we’ve invested in them) to grow and helping them to get more money if they need it and helping them with any problems that we could solve...The end goal is to either take the company public or, more likely, to sell those companies to someone else for a lot more money than we paid.
Street: What’ve you been doing today?
SW: I’ve been travelling a lot, so today I’m just trying to catch up on meetings. One of our companies is raising money, so we’re trying to figure out if we want to invest in the next round. We’re also looking at two businesses and trying to decide whether or not to fund those.
Street: Travelling sounds like a decent perk. Tell us about it.
SW: I was at a conference in LA, which was really social and I just wanted to go to it, but it made sense because my job is to meet really cool people. It was a lot of young, smart entrepreneurs...And then I was in Orlando, looking at a company in the crime space, so I was at the International Association of the Chiefs of Police conference talking to potential customers and potential competitors trying to decide if we like the business...There’s a lot of diversity in what I do. [Ed. note: can we bandwagon on to your Vegas trip next week?]
Street: What did you do at Penn that helped you prepare for the job you have now?
SW: At Penn, I was involved in Wharton, and my first two years, I was all up in the environmental scene and Weiss Tech House, where I realized [that working with companies and technology] is really cool. I didn’t know I liked technology. I found it out on accident because I tried to join the entrepreneurial club, and [at the activities fair] I didn’t see all the Wharton clubs. I got lost and could only find the engineering clubs, but it actually worked out perfectly...I quickly realized I’m passionate about the environment, but running around and passing out lightbulbs all day is not going to get me where I need to be.
Street: Did you create any startups while at Penn?
SW: My friends and I created PennLets, so if you’ve ever subletted your apartment, that was me. Our problem was that people were having to put their stuff on Craig’s List and they weren’t getting other people from Penn.
Street: What advice would you give to any Penn student trying to launch a company or startup?
SW: Start small...If you spend a year building a crazy product, you’re not going to get it to the customers You’re not going to learn what it takes to really get something to market.
Street: And what about after college?
SW: Join a startup, especially something early...If you can get yourself in a job where you’re essentially a ninja, even if the job description doesn’t sound that interesting, the company is going to be growing so fast. If you’re one of the first ten people, there’s going to be so much stuff for you to do, I promise you will be doing a lot of interesting things.
