We are hiring a Product Partner

If you know Connect, you know that Product is is at the centre of everything we do.

• Our mission: to back the best product-led software companies at seed stage, and the ambitious founders who build them.
• Our investment thesis: To invest in opinionated products, crafted with love and loved by many.
• The companies we have backed
• The founders we have partnered with: Visionary product thinkers, opinionated product leaders, and often expert operators themselves in Product roles like Design, Engineering, and Product Management.

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 Partner. We are recruiting a software product enthusiast, with relevant experience in designing, building and scaling software products. We have high ambitions for this role. Simply put, we expect our Product Partner to enable us to further leverage product as the True North of the firm.

Scope and Impact

To fit the role, you should be excited about the following responsibilities:

Investment

• Scout and engage with the best current (and future) product founders
• Alongside the General Partners, assess product vision, product strategy and product teams
• Lead our evaluation of the product’s elements as related to engineering and design post-investment

Portfolio

• Lead our value-add efforts on everything product-related for companies in our portfolio
• Accelerate the knowledge of product best practices across our portfolio and guide them to build product-centric organisations

Connect Network and Brand

• Nurture and expand our network of product founders, product operators and thought leaders
• Support our marketing team in ideation and design of our content marketing

What we are not expecting

• Lead investments and be accountable for the firm’s investment decisions
• Represent Connect as a board member (though you will occasionally observe board meetings when relevant)
• Run the tech due diligence yourself — but a solid high-level understanding of engineering and design is important

Traits and Skills

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
• Ability to sync product love with business goals
• Network of peers in the European product community
• Ability to design and run content-related events (webinars, classes, podcasts)
• Strategic thinker
• Strong networker
• Low ego, high EQ
• Top communication and collaboration skills

About the role

Relationship

As Connect’s Product Partner, you will:

• Work primarily with the Investment Team as a thinking partner for Pietro, Rory and Sitar (the General Partners) with regards to all product-related matters, both at the investment stage and post-investment stage
• Collaborate closely with the Network and Marketing team
• Be a key member of the team and actively participate in all our internal meetings, offsites, external events
• Build relationships with portfolio founders/CEOs and their product leaders as a trusted advisor
• Leverage a small external team of product mentors, that you will form and select by vertical expertise and geo-coverage
• Get exposure to our LPs and represent Connect at events, PRs, etc.

Time commitment: The position doesn’t necessarily need to be full time. We seek availability for at least 2 days a week — one of which must be Mondays, the day we devote to partner and team meetings.

Location: Currently WFH. Ideally based in London, along with the rest of the team. We are open to considering remote work.

Compensation includes allocation of carried interest.

Connect Ventures Culture

• We value excellence, collaboration, continuous improvement, and hustle.
• +1 for strong opinions, loosely held.
• We are all different; we recognize and cherish that.
• We cultivate radical candor (we call it tough love).
• We go all in. We’re selective about who 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 and good times, or learning from losses and 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 our network go through the same process and get the same experience.
• We ask that applicants complete the below application to capture relevant information and answer a series of questions. To keep it as fun(ish) as possible, we expect to collect questions partly by video and partly in writing.
• The goal is to have applicants spend around 45 mins.

There you have it. We believe this job is an amazing opportunity to materially impact a variety of great product companies, to work alongside excellent product teams, and to gain exposure to venture investing. You will bring your unique competence and style to our team and make our decisions stronger as a result.

If you’re interested, apply here to tell us more about yourself.

If you know someone who might be the perfect candidate, please spread the word. Thank you!

Pietro, Rory, Sitar