Breaking Into Venture Capital Without Prior Experience, Featuring Connor Sattely

Getting into the venture capital world is extremely hard. When a fund opens a position, it is common to see 1,000 to 3,000 applications within 24 to 72 hours, with hiring rates often below 0.1 percent. VC firms are small, highly selective, and rarely hire, and most roles are filled through networks and long-term credibility rather than cold applications. So how do you break in without the perfect background?

In this live podcast-style session, we will have an honest and practical conversation about what it really takes to enter venture capital without coming from investment banking, consulting, or a top MBA program, and how to start building real positioning in the ecosystem today. 

Connor Sattely’s journey is a strong example of a non-traditional path. He began as a journalist, said yes to a startup opportunity, and went on to build two startups across three continents, including one platform serving more than 320,000 users. After 12 years in the startup ecosystem, he transitioned into venture capital. Today, as part of the Deals Team at Decile Group, he supports more than 130 VC funds globally and has reviewed over 650 investment opportunities. If you are curious about venture capital, considering a transition, or questioning whether you truly fit, this session will give you practical clarity on how to break in the smart and realistic way.

Date- March 2nd 2026

Time- 9 PM JST to 10.30 JST (1 PM Netherlands)

Place - Online (Zoom )

Agenda:

• Welcome
• Host and Speaker Introduction
• Panel Discussion
• Audience Q and A
• Networking Session

Featured Speaker:

Connor Sattely, Deals Team at Decile Group- He is a member of the Deals Team at Decile Group, where he supports more than 130 active venture capital funds globally. He reviews deal memos to strengthen how fund managers evaluate investments, develops a curriculum to help emerging managers operate effectively after closing their funds, and facilitates deal sharing across the Decile and VC Lab communities for co-investment opportunities. Through this work, Connor has deep, practical insight into how modern venture firms assess startups and make investment decisions.

Host :

Yu Li Shein- Venture Partner at Co-capital.vc, Co-Founder & COO of Openfor.co, and Co-Director of Founder Institute Japan/Korea/Taiwan. With over 12 years of international experience across business development, partnerships, and global expansion, including time in India, the United States, and Japan, she has played a key role in shaping Asia’s startup ecosystem. Yu Li was instrumental in launching and scaling Founder Institute Japan, building the mentor and partner network from the ground up, and helping establish it as a major accelerator brand in the region.

📌 What You Will Learn:

• What VC firms actually look for beyond resumes
• How to build credibility before you have the title
• How to position yourself strategically in the ecosystem
• Practical steps to create real opportunities in venture capital

📌 Who Should Attend:

• Aspiring venture capital professionals who want to break into VC but do not come from traditional finance backgrounds
• Startup operators, founders, or early team members thinking about transitioning into investing
• Students or young professionals exploring venture capital as a long term career path
• Angel investors who want to move from occasional investing to institutional venture
• Ecosystem builders, community leads, and accelerator managers who want to deepen their understanding of how funds operate
• Professionals in consulting, tech, journalism, or corporate roles who are curious about how to reposition themselves toward venture capital

About the Co-Host Organizations:

- Openfor.co: It is an entrepreneurial talent development company and non-equity venture/ecosystem builder supporting individuals and organizations starting from individual-level; detects high-potential people with our proprietary system, developing and featuring personal stories to launching a digitally productized personal brands, content creation and visibility with our 700K audience reach, to turning it into a business, and monetization to all the way up to launching a company. All-in-one platform with a marketplace, education, back-office support, content creation, and global reach, combining early visibility with hands-on operational support. Meanwhile, as an ecosystem builder, we work with more later-stage startups, larger enterprises, and governments, building and operating complex multinational 7-8 figure programs. It all boils down to this: we are on a mission to make the venture ecosystem accessible, making the world a more entrepreneurial place.

- Founder Institute: Founder Institute, which originated in Silicon Valley, is a founder and idea stage accelerator, and with its Founder Capital, backs the best performing FI alumni as early as the angel stage. FI has over 8K+ startup portfolio (Including leading e-learning platform Udemy, IPO in Nasdaq $3,8B) across 200 cities in 100 countries around the world.) We are also the largest mentor network in the world, with over 35,000 mentors, and our alumni have already raised over $2 billion in US dollars and have recently exceeded the 10K mark of investors in the FI-Venture-Network.

-Founder Capital: The Founder Institute VC fund that invests and supports top accelerated companies from the world's largest startup network.

-Co-Capital: Focusing on preseed startups in AI-native, B2B founders emerging from APAC, building globally structured companies from inception.