“Neutral references are worse than negative references.” – Kelli Fontaine
From investing in great fund managers to data to investor relations, Kelli Fontaine is a partner at Cendana Capital, a fund of funds who’s solely focused on the best pre-seed and seed funds with over 2 billion under management and includes the likes of Forerunner, Founder Collective, Lerer Hippeau, Uncork, Susa Ventures and more. Kelli comes from the world of data, and has been a founder, marketing expert, and an advisor to founders since 2010.
You can find Kelli on her socials here:
X/Twitter: https://x.com/kells_bells
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellitrent/
And huge thanks to this episode’s sponsor, Alchemist Accelerator: https://alchemistaccelerator.com/superclusters
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.
Brought to you by Alchemist Accelerator.
OUTLINE:
[00:00] Intro
[02:11] How Kelli became a figure skater
[06:59] Kelli’s football fandom
[08:47] Picking schools for critical thinking for children
[10:55] The difference between likeability and founder-friendliness
[13:35] Correcting biases as LPs
[15:07] Examples of what makes GPs unique
[19:53] What kinds of data was Cendana NOT measuring when Kelli joined?
[21:58] What are datapoints that LPs should measure but aren’t?
[23:45] Startup metrics that LPs should track
[26:16] Can you trust the data out there?
[32:05] How does one start building a GP dataset from scratch?
[37:38] Why does Cendana do 40 reference checks per fund?
[39:47] Neutral references are worse than negative references
[42:28] The questions Kelli asks founders when diligencing GPs
[43:44] How Cendana does monthly calls with all their GPs and large LPs
[47:57] How often does Cendana send investor updates?
[49:13] The difference between monthly calls and taking an LPAC seat
[51:19] Kelli’s indelible sports moments to witness
[52:37] What makes Kelli laugh?
[56:14] Thank you to Alchemist Accelerator for sponsoring
[57:15] If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean a lot to me if you shared it with one other friend!
SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- Cendana Capital
- Forerunner Ventures
- Founder Collective
- Lerer Hippeau
- Uncork Capital
- Susa Ventures
- University of Tennessee, Knoxville
- Montessori education
- Floodgate
- Julian Shapiro
- Julian Capital
- Deep Checks
- Y Combinator
- Cambridge Associates
- MSCI Private Capital (formerly Burgiss)
- Kirsten Green
- Warby Parker
- Michael Kim
- Julius Dodson
- Thomas Ikeda
- Fernandina Ko
- Denver Broncos
- Peyton Manning
- University of Tennessee Vols
- Tiffany Vise and Derek Trent became the first pair to land a quadruple salchow jump
SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:
“Neutral references are worse than negative references.” – Kelli Fontaine
“What is unique about their background that gives them a right to win today?” – Kelli Fontaine
“Everybody uses year benchmarking, but that’s not the appropriate way to measure. We have one fund manager that takes five years to commit the capital to do initial investments versus a manager that does it all in a year. You’re gonna look very, very different. Ten years from now, 15 years from now, then you can start benchmarking against each other from that vintage.” – Kelli Fontaine
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