A venture partner at Greycroft shares his best advice on what what makes a good venture investor and how to break into the cut-throat business

• Kamran Ansari, a venture partner at Greycroft Partners who previously led the fund's investment in Venmo, shared his best career advice for young finance professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs.
• Speed is at the core of the venture industry. "In the venture business, it's not necessarily about getting convictions, it's about getting a conviction first," he said.

Venture capitalists do much more than just sign checks. They're constantly on the hunt for the next big idea and work closely with startup founders to help their companies grow. But what's the most critical quality for a successful venture investor?

At the core of the cut-throat business is speed, said Kamran Ansari, a venture partner at Greycroft Partners, whose portfolio includes Acorns, Axios, The Huffington Post, and Venmo. At Greycroft, Ansari helped oversee the fund's investments in Venmo (acquired by Braintree) and Braintree (acquired by PayPal) and later led other fintech deals including investments in Bread Finance, Recurly, and Azimo.

"In the venture business, it's not necessarily about getting convictions, it's about getting a conviction first," he said. "I think we all have made this mistake - and I still make it today: I like a company, but there's something I want to think about, and the next thing happens is somebody else bid in, and it's over."

The key is to find a balance: You need to fulfill your fiduciary duties to investors, conduct due diligence, show entrepreneurs you're interested in them and then snag the deal quickly. That ability, Ansari said, partly comes from experience - the more deals you have seen, the better you will get with pattern recognition.

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And when it comes to sourcing deals, the most important quality that investors look for in startup founders is enthusiasm.

"Being a founder means if you see something that doesn't exist in the universe yet or doesn't work today, you cannot sleep tonight unil you fix it," he said.

Outside Greycroft, Ansari worked as the head of corporate and business development at Pinterest, where he led mergers and acquisitions efforts and led nine deals, for roughly three years. Ansari said that experience offered him a chance to step into an entrepreneurs' shoes - critical in fostering a certain mindset as an investor.

For young investors who are interested in nabbing a job in venture capital, he suggests connecting with startups, figuring out how they operate, and understanding how those entrepreneurs think. They should utilize their networks and develop a relationship with founders who are starting out, he said.