BASS through the eyes of a BASS intern (Reflection by intern Choi Yu-jin)

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This article was not written by us, but by Choi Yu-jin, who interned with us at BASS for five months, as a note for the next intern and CEOs receiving investment from BASS. Although she worked alongside us, she also looked at us with a third-party perspective, so we're sharing her thoughts on VC work and BASS. Choi Yu-jin, thank you for reminding us of the joy of working with great colleagues—thank you again for all your hard work over the last five months.

Hello, I’m Choi Yu-jin, and I spent the last five months as an intern on the investment team at BASS Investment. If you're interested in an internship at BASS, or a founder considering a relationship with BASS, I'd like to share what I've observed and felt about BASS as a VC, in the hope it might help you.

This internship has been a time of great personal and professional growth. Through countless investment review meetings and meeting so many startup founders, I came to feel that entrepreneurs are much like artists—creating something from nothing, proposing new paradigms, and relentlessly striving for their goals. Just as an artist drafts a sketch in pencil, allowing room for revisions before bringing the whole piece alive with diverse brushstrokes at the end, I felt founders work in similar ways to bring their vision to completion. And because of that, I realized how challenging it is for early-stage VCs to continue envisioning and guessing what the first sketch will ultimately become. Verifying the narrative of business value from an early-life-cycle founder, where history is still being written, felt much like trying to see the big picture from a mere outline on a blank canvas. And by seeing how much time and effort BASS team members invest to help bring these works to life, I truly understood what it means to be 'founder-friendly.' It made me think that if I ever start my own business in the future, BASS is the VC I’d definitely want to come to.

More specifically, what kind of VC is BASS Investment?

Before interning at BASS, I vaguely assumed all VCs were more or less the same. Many seniors in the entrepreneurship club said the same. But actually experiencing the industry and meeting various people, I realized each firm can be quite different—depending on the CEO, partners, and investment reviewers, their tendencies and strengths or weaknesses vary noticeably.

In short, if you ask me, 'Why BASS Investment?' I think I could answer as follows.

First, BASS Investment is a VC that invests in good places.

So, what exactly does a “good place” mean? To me, what BASS means by “good place” is really “good people.” When I attended the weekly Wednesday investment review meetings, I would join partners and investors as the founders presented their IR or as the BASS team gathered to make final investment decisions together. As mentioned, when deciding on companies that are almost a blank slate, there were often strong arguments on both sides and decisions were never made lightly. It was impressive to see how insightfully they prioritized different criteria according to the nature of the business, sometimes even raising points that startup founders themselves had not considered. This gave me a real sense of what BASS looks for. And above all, while Product-Market Fit—the alignment between product and market—is important, what matters more is 'who' is solving 'what' hypothesis or market problem, in other words, Founder-Problem Fit.

I think BASS's decision-making stands on the accumulated thought of those who have invested in countless companies or run their own businesses in the market. When looking at founders, BASS consistently asks: what does the founder want, how much do they want it, and do they have the ability to see it through? Without answers to these, no deal proceeds. Just observing how these investment decisions are made has shown me what good investing means. Investing reminded me of the merchant in The Little Prince who spends his days counting stars to feel rich—we think that putting numbers to something gives us control, though really, it doesn’t. Capital, like the stars in the sky, is also always in circulation, and I learned that to invest well means putting money where it will perform best. Ultimately, investing in where the best fruits will come in the future, producing great varieties, becomes a driver of social progress—and making that judgment is the role of a great VC.

Second, BASS Investment is a house that sincerely thinks about what more it can do for entrepreneurs on a tough path.

At every Monday meeting, the investment team at BASS had honest conversations about what founders of portfolio companies need most and how they could meet those needs. We talked about what issues founders are facing and whether there are common challenges across different companies each reviewer is responsible for. This really struck me because I initially had doubts and biases about the value of this process in a VC's actual duties. But as the meetings went on week after week, those preconceptions disappeared, and I learned there are VCs that work hard to provide something genuinely valuable, not just surface-level support, for founders.

One especially memorable moment was during a meeting with a startup. One day, together with CEO Shin Yoon-ho, we met a founder who was still contemplating investment. After hearing the pitch, the CEO persuaded the founder not to take investment now, suggesting it would be better to wait for stronger indicators and a higher company valuation, and to consider investment only when it’s truly needed. This made me realize how hard it often is to bridge the gap between VCs and founders—for founders tend to seek VCs when they need funding most, while VCs are typically looking for companies growing with positive indicators that don’t necessarily require investment. However, BASS knows how much investment influences a company’s long-term growth, and they invest with the conviction that the only way to genuinely bridge this gap is through mutual coexistence. It's not just about being happy to hand out a term sheet. If you work with reviewers who genuinely want to begin the journey side-by-side with founders and go through it together, I think it will be an even greater help in achieving your goals.

In closing

Looking back on my internship, these past five months have been spent meeting founders who sincerely seek investment, discussing and thinking deeply with the investment team, researching and analyzing diligently, giving my all to become the kind of talent the company needed. Even after work and on weekends, I found myself thinking constantly and asking questions—it was that kind of internship. I met so many wonderful people, learned so much, and was able to develop my thoughts and philosophy in a truly meaningful environment. Finally, I'd like to offer my heartfelt respect and support once again to all those in BASS’s portfolio who have already been funded and to founders hoping to be so in the future. I’m definitely a bit envious of the next interns and entrepreneurs who will get to work with BASS, and I hope everyone at BASS continues to grow tremendously. Fighting! d^^b

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