A Serendipitous Path to Venture

Andrea Bogarin

Dreams can evolve in unimaginable ways; for Ulu Ventures senior associate Andrea Bogarin, joining the VC industry was definitely serendipitous. Andrea started her career as a product manager at early-stage companies. Her path led her to work in health tech, legal tech and e-commerce tech. With a C-level position in mind as her next milestone, Andrea applied to business schools.

Then came the pandemic: she put off her business school plans and decided to take a risk learning about the other side of the tech ecosystem during her gap year. While working as a senior product manager, she saw the tremendous influence investors wielded so she secured a fellowship with the corporate venture capital firm Samsung Next to take a look under the hood. They hired her with no financial experience, but she knew that with her product background she could be helpful in investing and with evaluating companies. Career-wise, she’d found her sweet spot. Andrea’s “aha” moment came through working with diverse entrepreneurs; as an immigrant and woman of color, she knew a venture career would be fulfilling on a personal and professional level.

Precursor

She went on to work at Precursor Ventures as an intern and graduated with an MBA from Wharton. Andrea had known about Ulu since 2020 and had met Miriam Rivera at different events. Miriam’s founding story and Ulu’s data-driven approach to ambiguous problems resonated with not only Andrea’s personal background but also her engineering background. She often wondered how she could find someone who worked at the firm, so when Ulu hired COO Summer Barghouti, Andrea found her connection: Summer had been her supervisor in a previous job. Andrea began working with Ulu in 2023—as a senior associate, she’s a critical part of the investment team.

What’s your job at Ulu?

I wasn’t sure what hat I was going to wear coming in as an investor. We all wish we could spend 100% of our time on the investing aspects of the job, but I’ve also learned the ins and outs of  running a management company through the fundraising process. As Ulu continues to build a legacy fund, I spend a lot of my time, with Summer, on building out our processes, products, and tools that will make the company more efficient.

Ulu Team Working Session

On the investing side, talking to founders, thinking through marketing opportunities and their products, doing the product demos—these are all things I really enjoy. And as a non-partner, my job is really one of support. I help our partners, who have these amazing networks, and make sure that we’re moving those companies through our process, and trying to support them in the relationships that they already have and with the deals that they’re bringing to the table while building out and leveraging my own networks.

Do you think people have misconceptions about the venture industry?

Some people think venture is a glamorous job, that VCs are flying out on trips all the time to meet with founders and go to conferences. There’s a level of that, but there’s also a tremendous amount of research.

It’s thinking through multiple aspects of a business that, especially at the early stage, can feel really ambiguous and uncomfortable.”

And I think being an investor has some very gratifying parts to the role. But it’s also really hard for me, because it’s hard to say “no”… I’m saying “no” all the time to companies. And then there are the companies that we get excited about and end up backing, and many of those aren’t going to survive. When you think about that, venture can be a sad and daunting thing.

What’s your advice to someone who wants to pursue venture as a career?

You need to be laser focused and have a one-track mind when recruiting for VC. Once I made the decision to work in the industry, I made a game plan while building out my strategies.

Networking is part of just about everyone’s professional life these days, but VCs can be extra particular with whom they want to interact or possibly even mentor. I tell people, build your own CRM (client relationship manager) of people you want to build connections with. When reaching out, be specific about your ask and what you are willing to give. Then, track those relationships, reach-outs, and conversations. If you have built a rapport within the ecosystem, it is likely that you will hear about opportunities first, get connected, and break in.

Having your eyes wide open going into any job and any career is essential”

So having a lot of those informational conversations about things like “What does your day actually look like?” is important. Talk to investors, talk to people who are in the role that you want to be in. Again at Ulu, we’re not just investing—we’re running a business and building processes.

Finding where your skills overlap with what a VC firm is looking for is also going to go a really long way. Naming the skills that I had based on my prior experience that I had in my background, and then matching those up against the type of firm and the type of fund that I might want to go into, was really helpful for me in eliminating certain firms.

As you think about your own background and experience, start to think about what kinds of VC firms you are interested in. Sure, there are some well-known firms out there, but understanding what is right for you, whether that be early-stage or later-stage focus, VC or corporate VC, will help you narrow it down. Then, do research on those funds—what investments have they made, are they thesis-driven or thematic—prior to reaching out and networking.

 

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Rusty Dornin
Rusty Dornin is the director of marketing and communications for Ulu Ventures. An award-winning radio and television journalist, she was a CNN correspondent for nearly 18 years covering domestic and world news ranging from war to natural disasters and tales of crime and politics.
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