Junior BD Onboarding

Overview

How first-year sourcing and BD professionals should structure their first 90 days on the job — practical advice for accelerating the learning curve when entering a firm without prior investing experience.

Key Perspectives

• Dan Herr estimates it takes 12–18 months for a new sourcing professional to "really kind of get up to speed and find their legs," and notes that even experienced hires may need two years to close their first deal at a new firm. He argues deployment targets must vary by experience and ramp curve — a first-year BD professional won't deploy $20 million, and leaders should measure early funnel output metrics (quality interactions, IC presentations, IOIs submitted) as leading indicators rather than waiting for bottom-of-funnel results. (Ep. 6)

• Ryan Murphy frames the first 90 days as a rep-collection exercise: "Try to get as many reps as possible in situations that aren't super consequential." He recommends sitting in on calls across all of the firm's investment verticals — at Norwest that spans growth products and services, enterprise, and healthcare — and looking for adjacencies between them. The goal isn't to contribute but to "be a fly on the wall" and "build my own archetype as an investor." (Ep. 22)

Themes

Cross-vertical exposure

Ryan deliberately sits in on calls outside his core growth products and services focus. He looks for pattern recognition: "What are the adjacencies? Like if healthcare is talking about something, what's the adjacency in growth products and services?"

The sponge mindset

See Sponge Mindset for the underlying framework. Ryan's approach: enter every room with humility, assess what each colleague does well, and actively try to replicate those skills.

Finding patient mentors

Ryan emphasizes identifying a few people willing to answer basic questions without judgment — "the questions you might feel embarrassed to ask other people."

Building personal credibility via team credibility

Junior professionals lack personal track records. Ryan's solution: "hype up" the credibility of senior team members on calls, positioning yourself as the gateway to them rather than claiming authority you don't yet have.

Related Concepts

• Sponge Mindset — Ryan's operating framework for the first 90 days
• Consistency of Personality — The long-term habit that compounds over many reps
• Inputs vs. Outputs Metrics — Dan's framework for measuring junior performance on early funnel outputs rather than bottom-of-funnel deployment (Ep. 6)

Episode Coverage

Episode	Guest	Angle
Ep. 6	Dan Herr, Matt Rooney (hosts)	12–18 month ramp time, ramp-adjusted deployment targets, early funnel metrics for juniors
Ep. 22	Ryan Murphy	First 90 days advice from a first-year sourcing associate