Fred Wilson got lucky

Fred Wilson, the well-known NYC VC and blogger, just posted to his blog the abbreviated story about how he landed in VC. I think it's illustrative of the kind of luck and timing that you need to get into the business (outside of connections and just raw talent, which help, but aren't guarantees).

I remember Fred came into our Business, Technology, and Innovation class in the fall and shared with us some of this story as well. He was looking for a job in the days where you had to physically mail resumes to a hundred firms and then follow up the old fashioned way. Luckily, we've got tools like LinkedIn to help us out these days, but as you know from reading my blog, its still a hard (one of the hardest?) nut to crack.

Also, as the CEO at the company I interned with this summer said (an HBS grad, although I don't hold that against him), back in the day you wouldn't even dream of contacting VCs as a lowly business school student, or even have any expectation that you'd get a meeting. Times have really changed, and I can imagine Fred was knocking (literally) on alot of doors back then.

I wish more VCs would share their story. It's certainly conforting to know that its hard for most people to get into the business, and it definitely displays some humility and self-awareness to share that with others. If I've missed other examples of posts like Fred's, please feel free to comment and add links here.

By the way, I added my two cents with a comment on another guys's comment on Fred's post. Here it is.