Career Transition into Sourcing

Overview

Advice and lived experience for professionals entering deal sourcing from non-traditional backgrounds — sports, military, entrepreneurship, or other first careers. Deal sourcing is uniquely suited to career switchers because it rewards relationships, curiosity, and authentic personal stories as much as prior investing experience.

Key Perspectives

• Ryan Murphy transitioned from professional swimming into a sourcing associate role at Norwest Venture Partners after roughly three years of exploratory work. Between the 2021 Olympics and 2024, he held "300 different meetings with entrepreneurs and investors" using networks from Cal athletics, Haas Business School, the Olympic committee, and USA Swimming. He also made seven personal early-stage investments (two have exited positively, including one via Whoop). His advice to others: "be pretty thorough as you do the research" and find "a couple of people that are going to be patient with you" for questions you might feel embarrassed to ask. (Ep. 22)

Themes

Researching the space before committing

Ryan emphasizes that he did not choose growth equity quickly. He learned through conversation, refining his interests across dozens of meetings before deciding that growth equity / early-stage PE was the right fit. He recommends podcasts and direct conversations as parallel research tracks.

Finding your competitive advantage

When interviewers asked Ryan where he wanted to slot in at Norwest, he answered honestly: his Olympic background gave him a genuine advantage on outreach response rates. He leaned into that rather than trying to position himself as a traditional finance candidate.

Patient mentors matter

Ryan stresses finding a small number of people who will answer basic questions without judgment — the "embarrassing" questions that newcomers often suppress.

Episode Coverage

Episode	Guest	Angle
Ep. 22	Ryan Murphy	Three-year transition from Olympic swimming to Norwest sourcing associate