Chicken Rice and Venture Capital: Learnings From My Venture Capital Internship

“What makes one chicken rice shop better than the other?”

This was one of the first questions Joo Hock, Managing Partner at Vertex Ventures SEA & India, asked me when I began my internship. In all honesty, I had no idea how to answer.

He simply replied, “Learn from the others, get involved in deals, and let me know.”

At the time, I had just entered the venture capital industry with expectations that were still somewhat blurred. I was curious to understand why some businesses succeed while others fail so easily. From the outside, it seemed that with enough research, market analysis, and financial modelling, the answers would eventually reveal themselves. And at first glance, this did appear to be how many investment decisions were approached.

My first few weeks quickly became a steep learning curve. One week, I was trying to understand AI infrastructure; the next, I was learning about healthcare distribution models. Each deal required piecing together unfamiliar industries, technologies, and markets within just a few days (with a few extra doses of caffeine). We spoke with customers, industry experts, and founders, trying to make sense of fragmented information and translate it into a coherent investment view. Yet even with extensive due diligence, most startups fail, and only a few become meaningful outcomes for a fund. Thoroughness is essential, but certainty remains elusive.

Over time, I began to notice a subtle contradiction. Venture capital is fundamentally a qualitative discipline that relies on judgment about people, vision, and resilience, yet it is often approached through quantitative frameworks. Metrics and projections help frame an opportunity, but they rarely determine the outcome. When too much emphasis is placed on numbers, it becomes easy to overlook the human elements that often shape whether a company ultimately succeeds.

This became particularly evident when observing founders during pitch meetings.

Some founders resemble natural businessmen. They would walk into the room with confidence and an instinctive understanding of how to frame the opportunity. They know how to highlight the market, identify the right customers, and clearly articulate the pain points they are trying to solve. Their business intuition allows them to explain not only who they are targeting, but why those customers would care about their product in the first place. Yet when the discussion shifts to the product's technical details, the explanations sometimes become less convincing.

On the other end are deeply technical founders. These individuals understand their product inside and out, often down to the smallest detail. Their passion lies in solving complex problems and building innovative technology. However, they may struggle to translate that expertise into a clear business narrative. At times, they focus on solving problems before the market has fully recognised the need for them, or fail to articulate how their product addresses existing pain points clearly. As a result, they may unintentionally undersell the broader potential of what they have built.

The founders who stood out most were those who could bridge both worlds. They understood the technology and the problem deeply while also communicating its value clearly to investors, customers, and partners. No founder needs to be perfect at everything, but the ability to combine technical depth with business intuition creates a powerful advantage.

Through this experience, I gradually came to see investment decisions as being shaped by three key elements: the founding team, the product, and the market.

The founder must have the persistence to pursue an idea despite uncertainty, often driven by conviction that goes beyond money or recognition, and the ability to build a strong team that blends technical depth with business intuition. The product then needs to solve a real problem, not just one that might exist in the future, but a pain point customers face today, because early traction is what allows a company to scale quickly. Finally, the market must be large enough for that growth to matter. Venture investors typically look for opportunities in markets exceeding US$1 billion, where timing and speed become critical. When the right team builds a product that truly resonates in a large market at the right moment, that is when a startup has the potential to grow rapidly and deliver meaningful returns.

Looking back on my six-month internship at Vertex Ventures SEA & India, the experience was both challenging and rewarding. Venture capital often appears glamorous from the outside, but in reality it is a world of uncertainty, where both investors and founders are making the best decisions they can with incomplete information. It was only through the patience and openness of the team at Vertex, walking me through unfamiliar industries, sharing their thinking, and trusting me with real work, that I began to see where to look.

And slowly, I began to understand what Joo Hock meant. What makes a business truly special rarely appears in a spreadsheet. It is the people behind it, the founder taking a quiet salary cut, the team staying late not because they are told to, but because they cannot imagine stopping. That relentless commitment shapes the product, earns the customer, and sets them apart. In the end, what makes one chicken rice shop worth remembering over all the others is never just the recipe, it is the people behind it who refused to settle.

*Edited by *Rahul Thayyalamkandy, Director, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India.

For the latest news on Vertex Ventures SE Asia and India and our portfolio companies, follow us on Linkedin or subscribe to our monthly newsletter.