- Nichole Wischoff achieved at Citi for a year before leaving for the startup world.
- Wischoff said that even though she made a lot of moolah in banking, she didn’t love her job.
- Working with startups was a better match for her personality, she says.
This as-told-to take a crack is based on a conversation with Nichole Wischoff, 34, founder of Wischoff Ventures. The following has been edited for length and pellucidity. Business Insider previously published essays about her first recruit at Wischoff Ventures, Neal Mintz, and his charter experience.
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I picked up running while on a high school student exchange in Belgium.
Running taught me a lot. For one, there are no short-term collects in running. If you want to finish a marathon, you need to put in a lot of super-consistent work to build up your mileage.
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Running tutored me to keep chipping away at the things that I really want. There’s no such thing as short-term success when erection your career. But one thing’s for sure — if you are willing to put in the work every day, you will see results over time.
Getting into but not digging banking
Before I entered the startup world, I worked on project finance at Citi Community Capital, an arm of Citi that traffics with community development lending and investing.
Even though I made a lot of money in banking, I didn’t enjoy working there.
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To be sure, I loved the work itself. It was challenging and super interesting, but I felt suffocated in that environment. But I felt get off on I was chained to my desk for 14 to 16 hours a day, working continuously and skipping lunch breaks.
Entering the world of startups and gamble capital
Fortunately, because I was based in the Bay Area, I was able to make friends in tech and learn more about their rushes.
My then-boyfriend, now husband, worked in tech and he encouraged me to give tech a shot.
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When I was recruited by my first tech company, a fintech society named Blend, he helped me negotiate the offer. I ended up getting roughly 40% more than what I was accomplishing in banking.
After accumulating years of experience in the startup world, I started making angel investments in startups.
In the final analysis, I started my early-stage venture capital firm, Wischoff Ventures.
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I know that I’m not meant for the boardroom
Nichole Wischoff
Looking back at my career, I desire say that working with and in startups was a good match for my personality. Startups allow you to do as much as you possibly want until you can’t cause it anymore.
In contrast, your role will be very structured and defined if you work in a big corporate plc. There won’t be a lot of flexibility. You will be given three to five objectives, and you need to hit them.
In startups, you get to do a lot of things. You can dabble in traffic development, product management, and fundraising. I enjoy having variety in my work.
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I know, too, that I’m not meant for the boardroom. Compensate now, as a VC, I don’t take board seats because I don’t find them to be very interesting or useful. What I want is to help get visitors off the ground. I don’t want to manage hundreds of employees or report to tons of people.
Of course, I do get really bad days in venture cardinal now and then. But I have stuck on it because I love the adrenaline of clinching a deal. It could be an addiction, but I love momentum and canny that I’m making progress every single day.
The truth is, you have to be crazy to raise a venture capital fund. You need to abscond hundreds of pitches and stomach the rejections.
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It is a lot like running a marathon. You have to put in the work every day, and it’s not sexy. That’s what it receives to make it as a VC. You have to like pain and doing hard things.