Arthur Andreev, COL ’25, Southborough, MA
Arriving in San Diego, I had little clue as to how meaningful this summer would be. When I walked into work on my first day at Blueprint Equity, I was instantly welcomed by people who would slowly become much more than just coworkers; they became mentors, coaches, and more importantly, friends. Having just moved offices to the middle of La Jolla, Blueprint had just come off raising its second fund and was in the midst of scaling its investment team – affording me the opportunity to not only expand my understanding of investing, but glimpse into the process of building and scaling an investment firm.
At the time when I joined Blueprint, I had decided that I wanted to focus my career on early-stage investing, yet my prior experience through clubs like PUCP left me feeling as though investing at the Seed-Series A stage was more or less the equivalent of throwing darts at a dartboard. Thrown in the midst of Blueprint’s unique approach, I soon learned from the founding partners, and my VP, that one could still do substantial work to isolate the few companies that minimized one’s downside, while maintaining the potential for fund-defining returns.
My early summer was spent homing in on the unique set of companies that fit Blueprint’s early growth equity approach. As a firm that maintains a concentrated approach – investing in only 4-5 companies per year – finding intuition for which companies to contact, and which to avoid, was my first exercise in applying Blueprint’s late-stage investing philosophy to the early stage. Exposure to founder calls furthered my understanding of various business models, and truly tested my knowledge of the core SaaS metrics. After each call, I would be pushed by my VP to isolate and communicate my understanding of the business – building a case for pursuing or passing on the opportunity. While a Summer intern traditionally has little influence over these decisions, Blueprint consistently oriented itself around building a culture of transparency and pushed everyone to voice their thoughts, no matter their role at the firm.
While my summer began solely focused on sourcing, I was quickly brought into the due diligence process. Before long, I was being tasked with diving into a company’s data room and building out data packs to validate a prospective company’s core metrics. Once again, it was not merely an exercise for completion, but the first step to furthering my understanding of the opportunity and presenting my analysis to the investment team. While I was uncertain if I would get exposure to a live deal, my last few weeks were spent undergoing a rigorous deep diligence process post term-sheet – rounding out my exposure to all stages of Blueprint’s investment process.
More importantly, the opportunity to work in-person at the sunny La Jolla offices, gave me the chance for constant spontaneous conversations, whether stopping by a VPs office, grabbing coffee with the partners, or bonding with the other summer analysts over lunch. While the world of remote work has become a prevailing norm, the value of these in-person interactions cannot be understated. As such, I am very thankful for Career Services and Student Financial and Registration Services for helping me move across the country and take full advantage of Blueprint’s summer analyst program.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2023 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here
