Motley Fool Ventures Investor (Contract)

The Motley Fool’s venture capital arm, Motley Fool Ventures, is looking for an investing contractor with:

• An established network in the startup ecosystem
• Experience sourcing and screening early-stage tech deals 
• A proactive mindset who is intrinsically motivated and enjoys the work  

We envision this role lasting anywhere from 3-12 months. It's an opportunity to see inside another venture firm, and it’s a platform to actively network with founders and investors. 

***This is a part-time role and is fully remote, but applicants must reside in the US for consideration*** 

Desired experience: 

• Previous experience sourcing deals for a venture capital firm
• Experience independently sourcing early-stage private company investments

Job description

• Sourcing: Utilize your network of VCs, entrepreneurs, operators, service providers, and industry experts to drive deal flow. Identify potential investments and engage with A LOT of founders (you should be meeting with founders every day, virtually or in-person)
• Screening: As part of the sourcing process, you’ll evaluate opportunities against our criteria and overall attractiveness. This is an initial screen, not deep diligence.
• Relationship Building: Foster and maintain strong relationships with entrepreneurs, co-investors, and advisors, and act as a scout for the firm. Make valuable introductions. 

Deliverables

• Your primary goal (key output) will be to source at least one deal per quarter that we invest in. 
• You’ll manage your own process, which will depend on your network, experience, and working style, but here are some guidelines that will likely apply:
• You’ll need to speak with A LOT of founders (i.e. on a daily basis/ 5x per week)
• You’ll want to bring 1-3 companies per month to our deal flow meetings via our one-pager process. The lower end of this range only works if the companies are extremely high quality and consistently move to deeper diligence.
• What is a one-pager? A sourcing one-pager is a short, templatized memo describing an investment opportunity.
• For a deal to qualify to be written up in a one-pager, it must meet our basic criteria: 
• $1M+ annualized revenue (verified by historical P&L), 100%+ year-over-year growth, 50%+ gross margins, and tech-enabled (no hardware, biotech, or CPG). 
• The team meets twice per week to discuss new one-pagers. The outcome for a given one-pager is either pass or a follow-up management meeting. If we move forward, you’d be a contributor to diligence (i.e. reference calls, team discussions) but will ultimately hand the relationship off to the full-time team.
• We estimate this role will take 20-40 hours per week, but we care more about the outcomes (investable deals) than the hours you put in. We will collaborate with you on a weekly, if not daily, basis and provide regular feedback on performance.