We are hiring a Product Partner
If you got to know us, you’ve learned that lots of things at Connect rhyme with Product.
- Our mission: to back at Seed stage the best software product-led companies and the ambitious founders who build them.
- Our investment thesis: Opinionated Product, Crafted with Love and Loved by many.
- The companies we have backed
- The founders we have partnered with. They are all great product talents visionary product thinkers, opinionated product leaders and often are expert operator themselves: Designers, Engineers, Product Managers.
Since we co-founded Connect, we have been building a venture capital firm with a singular conviction and expertise in backing product companies. We call our craft product-first investing. We work every day to perfect it. We strive to have the same depth of expertise in Product that we have in Business and Strategy. Ultimately, we want to stay true to our promise that Connect is the VC Where Product Founder Fit.
With these goals in mind, we want to complement our team with a product expert.
The Role: Product Partner
We are recruiting a software product enthusiast with previous experience as founder of product companies and/or operator in product roles.
We have high ambitions for this role. Simply put, we expect the Product Partner will enable us to further leverage product as the true north of the firm.
The Product Partner of Connect will:
- Work primarily with the Investment Team as a thinking partner for Pietro, Rory and Sitar (the General Partners) with regards to all the product-related matters, both at the investment stage and at the post-investment stage.
- Collaborate closely with the Network and Marketing team.
- Lead our add value to the portfolio companies on everything product.
- The position doesn’t need to be necessarily full time. We seek at least availability for 2 days a week – one must be Monday, the day devoted to partners and team meeting.
Be a key member of the team and take active participation in all our internal meetings, offsites, external events. - Get exposure to our portfolio companies and LPs and represent
- Connect at events, PRs etc.
Location: currently WFH. Ideally based in London as the rest of the team. We are open to considering remote.
Compensation: includes allocation of carry interest
What you will bring
To fit the role, you should be excited about the following responsibilities
- Bring your own unique competence and style to our team and make our decision stronger as a result
Scout and engage with the best current (and future) product founders. - Assess product vision, product strategy and product teams for new investment opportunities.
- Lead our assessment on the elements of the product related to engineering and design. We don’t expect you to run the tech due diligence yourself, but a high-level overview of of engineering and design is important for this role.
- Builds relationships with portfolio founders/CEOs and their product leaders as a trusted advisor. Help them build product-centric organizations and lead them through a process towards great product management.
- Accelerate knowledge of best products’ best practices for us, our founders and the ecosystem.
- Expand our network of product founders, product operators and thoughts leaders.
- Support our marketing team in ideation and design of our Content marketing.
- Leverage yourself by building a small external team of product mentors, selected by vertical exercise and geo coverage.
What we are not expecting
- To lead investment and to be accountable for the firm investment decisions
- To represent Connect as a board member (though occasionally will observe board meetings when relevant).
You might be a good fit if some of the following describe you
- Relevant experience as a product operator. Founder or executive
- Exposure to product startups that are venture scale
- Passion, curiosity and drive for software products and their impact
- Proven expertise and experience in Product Management and/or Product Design
- Solid technical (engineering and design) understanding.
- Ability to synch product love with business goals.
- Reputation and network: acknowledged in the European product community
- Ability to design and run content-related events (webinar, classes, podcast)
- Strategic thinker.
- Generalist (b2b, b2c).
- Strong networker
- Low ego, high EQ
- Top communication and collaboration skills
Connect Ventures Culture
- We value excellence, collaboration, continuous improvement, and hustle.
- +1 for strong opinions, loosely held.
- We’re all different, we recognize and cherish that.
- We cultivate radical candor (we call it tough love)
- We go all in. We’re selective about whom we work with be it, founders or external partners. But once we’re in, we’re collaborators, co-creators, and co-conspirators.
- We win by being us. We do things our own way, whether we’re celebrating wins or good times, or commiserating over losses or f*ck-ups.
- We have fun. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We work hard and play hard.
The application
We want the interview process to be fair and equal so that applicants from within and outside of our network go through the same process and get the same experience.