How did I get here?
Since I was a kid, I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit. At 13, my parents made that entrepreneurial spirit come out by saying “If you want to drive anywhere, go out to eat, or get a good college education then start working”. Now, most 13 year olds would have had a tantrum (and I may have internally) but my parents gave me an opportunity and I thank them to this day for it. This small moment in my timeline changed the whole trajectory of my life. So – I started my own shoe resale business with Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, worked my way up to shift manager at Zoe’s Kitchen. From starting my own exterior and interior remodeling business that had over 20 clients to fixing brakes, changing oil, and plugging flat tires. This isn’t a story about how I did everything right, but a story of Carpe Diem and turning your life into a sandbox full of opportunities.
I have founded 2 startups and received funding for one through a pitch competition (1st place) and accelerator. That was all to kick off my freshman year of college. A mentor told me “To fully comprehend a business and its story, you have to understand the numbers”. Since then, I have had a passion for storytelling and finding ways to make money. I started my college career by founding a startup, then joining a pre-seed company (The Brag House) to put my hat in the ring. There I was able to soak up how to accelerate a growing startup as we quickly grew from 3 interns (I was the first!) to 60 interns and 12 FTEs and offices in NYC, Austin, and London.
Being a corporate finance major, the social norm was to go invest on Wall Street. I didn’t want to just box myself in, I wanted to invest in “tomorrow’s people”. So, summer of 2021 I joined Jacobs Engineering as an Innovation & Investor Relations Intern. Now, I didn’t fully know what I was getting into, but I knew I was ready to make a splash. The first 3 weeks consisted of strategizing a revamp of our Innovation Accelerator, finding ways to spin out IP, and all things IR (financial ratios, preparing numbers for earnings, and meeting with investors). This was all good, but I was stuck desiring more. So, I started a weekly email distribution list. Authoring this list, I would write about the relevance of Corporate Venture Capital. These emails had 3 sections; A “Startup of the Week” section with light due diligence on a rising startup in our industry, an “Emerging Market” section discussing an emerging market that investors are watching and some macro analysis, and finally a “Competitor Update” section where I would breakdown one of our competitors and any venture investments they have made. It started with my co-workers, and quickly within the first 3 weeks was passed along multiple LOBs and had over 70% of the top 50 employees subscribed (6 executives). I started to make the splash that I wanted.
Where did this lead to? The SVP of Finance and I started to play with the idea of opening our own Corporate Venture Arm. Jacobs Ventures. After a few weeks of meeting with VC firms and CVCs, we wrote up the governance structure. After that, we started an official CVC team, then quickly inked our first deal, (sourced myself) HawkEye360. During my time with Jacobs, we invested over $10M in 4 startups.
After working with Jacobs for 2 years in undergrad I wanted to broaden VC experience. So, I joined RingCentral on their CVC team helping rebuild their portfolio. This was in the summer of 2022 where funding was dry and deals were hard to come by. I started to learn more and more about early-stage companies that are attacking AI, UCaaS, and the Future of Work. This just threw gas on the fire.
Ending my time with RingCentral was graduating from Virginia Tech. As a passionate Hokie alum, I set off to get married to my high school sweetheart, and move to Greenville, SC. Now, I work for VentureSouth early-stage investor in the Southeast with an angel investor group of nearly 600 angels. Where I work with our deal flow, due diligence, strategic partnerships, and anything else that helps grow our firm.
Why did I tell you all this?
There is a common misconception that you need an MBA or boutique experience to break into VC. I want to bring light to the stories of people who broke out of molds. Made their own path and went outside the sandbox.
Courage is not having the strength to go on; it’s going on when you don’t have the strength. – Theodore Roosevelt
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they knew that they had been with Jesus. – Acts 4:13
Dawson Racek 