In this Balancing the Grind interview, we catch up with Jethro Cohen, Senior Associate at Square Peg. Jethro opens up about his typical day in venture capital, contrasting his dynamic mornings with founders to research-focused afternoons.
He reflects on his journey from consulting to tech operations and now venture capital, discussing how his love for fitness and a Great Dane named Butter add a unique flavour to his work-life balance.
Jethro shares insights on staying informed across various sectors and offers advice on integrating personal interests into a demanding career, emphasising the importance of understanding what energises you both at work and in your personal life.
Hey Jethro, it’s great to have you with us! Can you share a bit about how your daily routine at Square Peg goes, especially with your diverse background in consulting and operations?
Everyone does venture capital differently — it’s one of my favourite things about the industry. How I approach a day can be really different to how my colleagues approach theirs.
I will typically try to reserve mornings for meeting founders. I am way higher energy before I eat lunch, so try to dedicate this time to the most important part of the job: building relationships with great founders.
Afternoons are for meeting other interesting folks, like investors and great operators, and working through any research I’m doing on a particular business or theme.
Your reflections on health and fitness are intriguing. How do these aspects influence your work style and decision-making at Square Peg?
Honestly, I’m not sure they do – but that’s okay! I love staying fit, and it gives me more energy for my day. I’ve competed on and off in powerlifting for most of my adult life. It’s a sport of inches and yards: another 2.5kgs is a milestone to celebrate. But it doesn’t change the way I approach VC.
I see lots of folks join venture, or the startup community more generally, and feel they need to incorporate every personal passion and hobby into something that gives value to work. That’s just not me. I like the separation; like having something that motivates me completely separate from my performance at work.
If I had to draw a comparison — I’m a big believer that VC is an industry where there’s a lot of luck, so you have to focus on the inputs: meeting lots of great people, and constantly learning about new themes or business models. A love of fitness – especially a solo sport – also necessitates a maniacal focus on inputs.
From consulting to Uber and then :Different, and now at Square Peg – that’s quite a journey! How have these varied experiences shaped your approach in the venture capital space?
I joked with Dan – the Partner who leads our Investment team in ANZ – when I joined Square Peg that I’d worked in call centres (consulting), pizza delivery (Uber), and property management (:Different). I can find just about anything interesting.
I think this is a really useful trait in VC, as the best founders we meet are oftentimes building companies in industries we’ve never spent a day thinking about. Having the passion to appreciate the problems in a variety of categories is a really important part of the job.
In saying that, scaling Ops at Uber and :Different – in particular – meant I spent a lot of time playing with the crop of SaaS tools that served fast-growing teams. These horizontal, mostly PLG productivity and analytics tools, have become a real passion of mine at Square Peg.
You’re known for investing across all sectors. What’s your strategy for staying well-informed and making investment decisions in such a broad spectrum?
When you’re investing outside your immediate cone of knowledge, a first principles approach is really important: is the problem a team is solving both large and very painful? Do the customers they sell to have the autonomy to pay for the solution? Do these customers get more, not less, value from the product over time? Does the business get better as it gets bigger?
These questions are important for every founder, not just those building in the categories I know best.
Having a network of people who can help you think through these questions is more important in categories you know less well, so I spend a lot of time trying to build out relationships with folks whose area of knowledge is completely unlike mine, or who – themselves – have high-trust relationships with a broad spectrum of operators.
The flip side is having the humility to readily admit that you’ll never be able to make a great decision on businesses in some categories. I try to stay away from spending too much time with founders building hardware, manufacturing, consumer, or deep-tech businesses as I know I’ll ask a bunch of dumb questions, and perhaps lack the expertise and networks to ever be a great partner.
We’ve heard about your Great Dane! Does sharing stories about your pet bring a unique perspective or balance to your work life?
Giant dog breeds have a special place in my heart. As a kid, we had Newfoundlands, Tibetan Mastiffs, and Leonbergers. Every dog I had as a kid weighed more than my parents.
Massive dogs are a bit ridiculous: they’re incredibly loving and goofy. This has huge benefits for home life: it’s a constant source of laughter and comfort, especially given my wife and I are often travelling on competing schedules. But it can also be really distracting. I’ve had to apologise to many founders who’ve seen an enormous Dane (my dog Butter) rest her head on my shoulder mid-conversation.
Most tell me it’s a great icebreaker, but I feel bad every time!
And lastly, what advice would you give to professionals who are looking to integrate personal interests and wellness into their career in a high-energy field like venture capital?
Understand what gives you energy – both inside and outside of work – and architect your week to spend as much time doing these things as possible.
For me, I know I’ll bring more focus and energy to a founder call if I’ve exercised that day. So making space for a run, or a session at the gym, makes me better at my job – even if it means arriving last to the office.
In terms of work itself, I try to avoid – as much as possible – spending time on things I know will make me less motivated in the long run. For example, when I started in VC, I thought the best way to do the job, and certainly, the way I’d seen many peers approach it successfully, was to attend social networking events every night after work. But it burnt me out so quickly.
