I was talking to an emerging manager raising a $10M fund recently. He shared a comment, likely off-the-cuff, but something I’ve heard many other emerging managers echo. “This year, most of the dollars deployed into venture has concentrated in only a few big funds.”
Not this manager in particular, but I’ve heard so many other Fund I or Fund II GPs say that. Blaming their struggle with fundraising on the world. It’s not me, but the world is conspiring against me. Or frankly, woe is me. But there is no LP who ever wants to hear that. Building a firm is hard. Building a startup, likely harder. No one said it’ll be easy. So let’s not pretend it’ll be all sunshine and rainbows. If you thought so, you’re deeply misinformed. If you’re going to be an entrepreneur of any kind, you need to take matters into your own hands. You cannot change the world (at least not yet). But you can change how you approach it.
That said, the mega funds who are raising billions of dollars are raising from institutions whose minimum check size is in the tens, if not hundreds of millions. These same institutions would never invest in an emerging manager. Their team, their strategy, and their institution isn’t built for it. When they have to deploy hundreds of millions, if not billions, a year into “venture” with a team of four or less, you’re not their target audience. So as an emerging manager, those mega funds are not your competition at least when it comes to LP capital.
You’re competing against all the other funds (likely emerging managers) at your fund size. Who can take the same check size you can take. That’s who you’re competing with. So whether you like it or not, billions going to the mega funds has, from a fundraising perspective, nothing to do with you.
If you are looking for reasons to fail, you will find one.
As the great Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
I was on a walk with an LP friend recently around Redwood City. And he told me a remark that another LP had about a mutual investor relations friend we had. That our IR friend started the conversation with, “What are your life goals?” And it alarmed that LP who was meeting our IR friend for the first time. To which, this LP told a few others that he was not only thrown off, but also felt offput by the interaction.
It led to a discussion between my LP friend and I where neither of us, knowing this mutual IR friend, would ever think less of our IR friend because that’s just how this person operates. But to someone who has no context of our friend, it would seem bizarre.
One of my friends who, at one point in time, was a full-time professional DJ, once told me, “The golden number is 120. 120 beats per minute. It’s the rhythm that when you strip all the noise away and you can get a heart to beat that fast, it feels like you’re in flow—flow state. Pure ecstacy.
“But you can’t start the set at 120. If your mix is at that pace, and the heart isn’t, it feels discombobulating. You need to work up to it. Start the set at 70. And over the course of a one- to two-hour set, you work your way up to it. And notice the audience. The crowd must be nodding their head to your beat. And if you ever lose that bob, slow the set down again. And try to catch that heart rate again.”
To this day, probably one of the best pieces of advice on how to hold a conversation I’ve gotten to date. And it was never meant to be so.
A question I get surprisingly often is: “Why did you start the podcast?”
Among many reasons — I get to ask dumb questions to smart people, refine my diligence skillset, get better at asking questions, and so on — one of which was that when I only have an hour and change with someone, I’d rather not spend 10-15 minutes on small talk. How are you? How was the weekend? Which seems to be the LLM that’s coded in us on how to start a conversation and hope eventually, you can get to the meat and potatoes of the conversation. And it makes sense.
To use the DJ analogy above, most people’s resting heart rate is around 60-100. To take the middle of the road, 80. And for busy people who are constantly distracted by meetings and tasks that need their attention, a conversation with a stranger is among the lowest of their priorities. So I always believed that people would be near their resting heart rate when chatting with a nobody like myself. As such, they need icebreakers like “How are you?” to warm them up to the conversation, where their first impression of how you answer that question will indicate where the conversation might go.
On the flip side, most people haven’t been on podcasts. Much less, the guests I aim to have on. LPs. Many typically aren’t given the stage. And even if they are, it’s closed door discussions and private events. Rarely, do they get a public stage. So, the hypothesis was that on average, an LP will most likely be more nervous, excited, you name your fair share of anticipatory emotions jumping on a podcast as opposed to an offline 1:1 conversation. Six seasons in, I’d say we’re pretty close to the mark there.
As such, a faster heart rate means I am often given the privilege of starting the conversation not from “How are you?” but a question closer to 100-110 beats per minute, with hopes we can get into the questions that result in 120+ bpm sooner. And it’s almost always easier to ask a question “for the audience” than for yourself.
“Tell us about the time you proposed to your wife via a billboard. And how does that influence the way you think about pitches today?”
“Half your games on chess.com open with the Ruy Lopez. How do you think about opening gambits when you play white. And how much, if at all, does it influence the way you think about opening a conversation with a GP?”
“How does getting your first day in investment banking postponed, which was supposed to be Sept 11, 2001, influence the way you think about serendipity?”
All questions that I would hesitate to say, would be easy opening gambits in a 1:1 coffee chat. But your mileage may vary.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
Writing this “Dear Emerging Manager” reached more people than I thought, so people asked me to write the same version for LPs.
You’re not special. No matter what GPs say, you’re not. I’m sorry. Refer to Danny Meyer’s line in Setting the Table: “You’re never as good as the best things they’ll say, and never as bad as the negative ones. Just keep centered, know what you stand for, strive for new goals, and always be decent.”
If you don’t believe me, imagine if you were broke, but you got to keep everything else you have. Knowledge. Network. Would the best GPs still give you carry if you had no money?
You’re likely not going to win the best co-investment. There’s very little incentive for a GP to. An experienced later-stage investor will do better than you. Will likely be more helpful than you. Even if by brand association alone. Will likely be better connected than you.
Even worse is if you can have the full pro-rata amount. Worse still, you get the “opportunity” to lead. If you do, you’re just telling everyone your child is the smartest kid on the planet. If no one else says that, it’s just you. Don’t believe your own bullshit. See Richard Feynman‘s line: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” Do note, it’s different if you get access to a Series D deal through your manager.
As of now, we’re investing in “innovation” when we should be investing in innovation. Let me lay down the incentives. You want liquidity, so you look at deals that generate such. The lowest hanging fruit here is companies who IPO. So you start looking for funds, and sometimes deals, that are in the same sector. And because you are, because you’re looking for that story, large organizations are pitching you that narrative. They restructure and hire teams so that it feeds that narrative. Because the multi-stage funds are doing so, early stage funds and “smart” first checks are pitching strategies and picking companies where they know the multi-stage funds will follow. The co-investor (much less the follow-on investor) slide in the deck gets the most attention these days. The established early stage programs are telling me, in confidence, that they invested in X deal because Big Firm Y will do so. And they’re optimizing for that. The larger platforms are telling me they’re hiring team members around which types of companies are getting late-stage funding and/or going public. Fintech became interesting because of Chime. Prosumer became interesting because of Figma. (Circa 2025). AI is interesting because of large secondary opportunities into OpenAI and Anthropic. Yes, these industries are all transforming the world, but note the incentives. These are the IBMs.
Because of all the above, funds really only have a 10-20% allowance to make venture bets. Any more than that, GPs risk career suicide, at least from the perspective of LPs. These GPs are “unbackable.”
I don’t want you to stake your careers on it. I’m just a stranger on the internet whom you shouldn’t take advice from. But this same stranger is frustrated at the collective risk appetite of an industry that’s supposed to be known for eating risk for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Venture has become too big of an asset class if you can describe emerging managers, established firms, growth equity, secondaries all within the same umbrella. The decision-making and the underwriting is different from each. Some see normal distributions. Others do not. Do not conflate a normally-distributed asset with a power-law-driven one.
A slow ‘no’ is worse than a fast ‘no.’ Some will thank you for a fast ‘no.’ Most won’t. But most will talk behind your back if you give them a slow ‘no.’ Time is the only resource we cannot win back. Yours and theirs.
Marks before Year 5 mean very little. You’re welcome to use them as directional headings, but never rely on them. Even if you do, do your own adjusted TVPI and IRR measurements outside of what GPs tell you and keep that methodology consistent across all investors you come across.
Lemons ripen early in venture. Early losses are not always a clear sign of a bad portfolio.
Another LP passing is not always a bad sign. Find out why. Find out how many other similar funds they saw.
It’s okay to pass on a deal if you don’t have the network to diligence the deal. Not having the network means you don’t have people who’ll tell you the cold truth. These are the people who’ll tell you that you have spinach in your teeth.
Don’t ask for data rooms in the first meeting. Or worse, before the first meeting. You’re likely not going to do anything with the data. In the words of my friend, “it’s like asking someone’s net worth on the first date.” Too early. The deck and a conversation is all you need to figure out if the juice is worth the squeeze.
Be transparent with your timing and decision-making process.
If you do not have the time, energy, budget, or network to do the work in true venture, hire someone to do it. Usually that means an oCIO, fund-of-funds, MFO, or a consultant. Make it their job. But make sure it is their ONLY job. The infamous fictional philosopher Ron Swanson once said, “Never half ass two things. Whole ass one thing.”
Your institution will thank you more for whole-assing one job. So, will your GPs.
In the words of Thomas Laffont, “Focus is a luxury.” You sit on more privilege than the vast majority of the world. More privilege than your childhood friends. It’d be a shame to not use the luxury that comes with that privilege.
Don’t torture the data. “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.” Let the data guide you to questions. Then form your own hypotheses. Understand you cannot grill any hypothesis until it dry ages for at least 7 years. Any sooner and it’s not worth the premium you paid for it.
Trust your intuition enough that you don’t regret in 30 years that you didn’t take the bet of the lifetime, but not enough that you live to regret a lifetime of (undisciplined) bets.
This letter is as much of a reminder for you as it is for me.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
I was chatting with a GP last week about the highlights and lowlights of having a multi-stage fund or just a VC fund as an LP via their fund-of-funds. The obvious synergies of access to downstream capital and branding, especially if the individual running the fund-of-funds is known for their institutional track record as an LP. As well as access to the GPs at those funds for mentorship reasons.
But the downsides also exist. You’re one of many of other GPs who have access to the same team. More often than not, there’s no institutional diligence. And the investment happens largely for strategic purposes. Same is true for multi-stage GPs investing through their own family office. But you also have to think through the tough conversations you need to have when you take checks from more than one of these funds. Assuming all else equal, and they write the same check size, when your portfolio companies are outperforming, do you pass them to Big Fund A or Big Fund B? Equally as true for any LP who wants co-investment opportunities. Family offices. Fund-of-funds. The classic question of: Do you like Mom or Dad more?
And there’s one more. Consider a multi-stage fund who’s an LP in your fund. You share one of your stellar portfolio companies with them, and they loved the deal so much they also invested. Not only invested, but led the following round at a much, much higher valuation. For the sake of this thought experiment, let’s say the Series A valuation is a solid nine figures. As such, they take a board seat. A year later, your portfolio company has the opportunity to exit for $800M. A phenomenal exit for everyone on the cap table, including yourself, your other co-investors, the founders, and the employees. And for you in particular, this would return meaningful multiples of your fund. But not your Series A lead, who is also your LP. The math isn’t inspiring for them. $800M would only be a shy 4-8X on their initial investment.
So, the Series A lead/your LP blocks the acquisition deal and pushes the founders to go for more. You push back on the motion as everyone else’s incentive, including the founders, is the same as yours. Whether the deal happens or not at this point is irrelevant. This Series A lead, who’s also your LP, ends up telling a number of other LPs that you’re difficult to work with. To the effect that they would also no longer re-up in your next vintage. And that makes your fundraise for the next fund even harder than you expected.
You’ve not only lost a $500-2M check (on average), but worse, you’re likely to have a tarnished reputation with prospective LPs. If they like you already, they may look beneath the surface. If they haven’t gotten to know you, they’ll likely surmise on limited information that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
Before you dismiss this as just a hypothetical case study, note that this is a true story.
As my buddy Thoronce told me, “Capital formation is a design principle. Fundraising is a sales process. Without true design around a customer base and a product, you will fail eventually.”
Capital formation is thinking through the types of conversations you want to have when you’re in Fund n+1 and n+2, 5-6 years from now. As Adam Marchickonce said, “The bulk of your conversations with an LP happen negative 6 months to time of investment. The most important conversations you have with an LP are Year 2 through 6 of your investment.” These are the conversations about extending recycling periods, early distributions, fund extensions, and so on. Many of which revolve around the return incentives of your LP base (if decisions are made by majority approval) or by LPAC approval. A family office who has no immediate liquidity needs might not want early distributions and wants you to hold out. Another who’s starting a new business line or pulling completely out of venture (because they were misinformed or set the wrong expectations initially) will want early liquidity and/or someone to buy their stake. An institution with a high leadership turnover rate will likely have a new CIO who’ll want to redo the whole portfolio. So what used to be obvious re-up decisions will need to be re-underwritten altogether.
So I’m not here to say, “Don’t take LP checks from fund-of-funds whose core business is being a VC.” I just want to remind you to consider the incentives of each LP you have on your cap table. Ideally, your LP base’s incentives are homogenous. Not only to themselves, but also to yours. Realistically, for the average emerging manager, it won’t be. But if you know it won’t be, prepare guardrails for future conversations. Don’t walk in blind.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
You are not all top quartile. Only 25% of you are.
You are not all top decile. Only 10% of you are.
I refuse to believe that I’m somehow seeing only the best in market. I’m not famous or lucky enough to have that fortune. Even the best known LPs I know are not so.
If your marks include companies held at last round valuation (LRV) for longer than two years, please consider proactive re-marks. This includes your angel portfolio.
SAFE rounds are not mark-ups. Do not conflate real marks with hypothetical marks.
If the founder doesn’t know who you are AND if you don’t know the company’s updates in the last two quarters, you don’t know the founder. Do not pretend you do. Your investment is not accretive to your future network. I dare say if I went to those founders right now, and asked them who their top five favorite investors are, you won’t come up. You’re forgettable. And that’s a cardinal sin of firm-building.
Let me caveat that firm-building means you plan to grow the firm. That where you are today is not where you want to stay forever as a GP. This matters far less if this is a one-and-done fund. That is okay. You don’t have to love venture forever. You don’t have to pretend you do.
Do not believe you are that special if you have a multi-stage GP as an LP. Many of the notable multi-stage GPs have invested in many. Some have invested in multiple dozens. Others hundreds. A handful we see in almost every deck. It is their job to see everything Or at least attempt to. The cardinal sin for a multi-stage GP is to not see the deal, worse than not picking or winning it.
Assume all your LPs will be passive LPs. I don’t care about their profile, how referenceable they are, how much they love you, how much they want to help. Give it a few months, a year at best, they will become passive. Human interest is fleeting. Especially since venture is the smallest bucket in our allocation (excluding funds-of-funds). And yes, they have day jobs. There are exceptions. For instance, someone who wants to start their own VC fund or someone who wants to be a VC themselves. That is not everyone.
When modeling, it is bold of you to assume that more than 10% of your portfolio will be outliers. It is bold of you to assume that more than 5% of your portfolio will be outliers. We are in a power law industry.
You will get diluted. More than you think. With how much longer companies are staying private, and how much capital is available in the later growth stages, you will get diluted. 80% is safe to assume if you have no reserves. Down to 65% depending on how much you have. There are very, very few cases you only have 50% dilution. Yet I see many GPs model their portfolio that way.
Pro rata is a legal right no successful capital will grant without a fight. If you get it without a fight down the road on a great company, ask yourself why you’re so lucky. And never forget to ask yourself that question.
In a market of exceptions, you are all more normal than you think. It sucks. In any other industry, most of you will have fairly little competition for greatness, but you chose one of the few industries where your competition is all exceptions.
How you react to a ‘no’ from an LP is a sobering fact and a great telltale sign of the strength of your relationships. I love chatting with other LPs who’ve passed on you. Not because I need to hear their why—most of our interests and mandates are different, but because I almost always ask how you react to their ‘no.’ And I am not alone here. Usually, LPs volunteer that information up quite readily. Of note, different LPs say ‘no’ differently. Most don’t. A fact I am aware of.
Many of us who do this as our primary job love you. We love venture. We love the romanticism that comes with this space. Do not play the hopeless romantic back. We need the truth.
There’s a great line that Elizabeth Gilbert credits her wife Rayya Elias. “The truth has legs. It always stands. When everything else in the room has blown up or dissolved away, the only thing left standing will always be the truth. Since that’s where you’re gonna end up anyway, you might as well just start there.”
The best time to share the truth is in person. And immediately. The second best is a 1:1 call. If it’s not urgent, save it for the AGM. If it is, call us.
We should not learn about you or your portfolio for the first time via the news. If we are, you’ve lost our trust. Shit happens. We get it. How you respond and communicate shit is what makes or breaks a relationship.
Many of my colleagues try to be helpful even if they can’t invest. Understand because they’re human they can’t be so for everyone. So when they are, don’t take it for granted.
If you conflate any of the above, you’re either lying to yourself or you’re lying to us. The former means you’re never going to make it in this industry. The latter means we’re just not going to be good partners for you.
This is not a Bible. Do not swear by it. Do not pray to it by the bedside every night.
This is just a morning wake-up call. Some of you have already woken up. Many of you may not have.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
“I hate checklists. I like outlines. I don’t like checklists. A checklist says ‘I have to have this, and then I’m good. An outline is ‘This is my starting point. These are the kinds of things I want to talk about or kinds of things I need to look at.” — Eric Sippel
Eric Sippel currently runs his family office and is an active investor in and adviser to many venture capital, private equity, hedge and real estate funds. He is a member of the RAISE Global selection and steering committees (the premier emerging VC manager conference) and often speaks to emerging venture manager groups. Previously, Eric was the COO of Eastbourne Capital Management, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund firm, and a Partner at Shartsis, Friese & Ginsburg, where he was a nationally recognized hedge fund and venture capital lawyer. Eric serves on more than a dozen LPACs and has served on many for profit and non-profit boards.
[00:00] Intro [02:13] Why Eric’s name on LinkedIn is lowercase? [02:44] Oceanside [04:18] Eric’s grandfather and education in the family [07:06] Basketball [07:58] Eric’s first venture fund investment in 1996 [12:05] How does Eric invest below the minimum check size requirement? [14:51] How to decide your LP check size [17:47] Today, when does Eric invest in a new GP? [21:14] Time x capital 2×2 matrix [24:32] Tough conversations with Eric [27:00] The minimum viable value-add for LPs who write small checks [32:02] Eric’s most impactful mistakes [35:11] How do you know if a GP is GOOD at adding value? [43:42] How many other funds in the same space does Eric look at before investing? [46:36] Breaking down Eric’s deal flow [49:35] How many references does Eric do? [50:27] Who does Eric trust for LP references? [52:34] Other references for diligence [55:23] How does Eric approach a founder reference? [59:09] Biggest lessons from CIA training [1:05:16] Mike’s Pizza [1:06:18] If everything were to change tomorrow, what would Eric photograph?
“The best way for an LP to construct a venture portfolio is to be diversified across a large enough number of firms and funds. And in particular, those funds should be concentrated. 20-30 companies per portfolio, maybe less in some cases. And they should be diversified across sectors, geographies, vintages, and firms/GPs. You need to have a minimum of 15, but 25-40 feels right to me.” — Eric Sippel
“When I’m thinking about who am I going to say yes to, I’m comparing that to the people I’m cutting out who I think are great and I’m comparing it to the other people who would love to have my capital who I think are great. One of things that drives me is the relationship I have with a GP.” — Eric Sippel
“Never follow your investor’s advice and you might fail. Always follow your investor’s advice and you’ll definitely fail.” — Hunter Walk
“My advice to GPs is to do what they believe is right for maximizing performance and not to listen to their LPs.” — Eric Sippel
“The best way to make money in any asset class is to think differently.” — Eric Sippel
On references… “I’ll talk to as many founders as I can get my hands on that are not on-list. I do not want GPs to introduce me to founders.” — Eric Sippel
“I hate checklists. I like outlines. I don’t like checklists. A checklist says ‘I have to have this, and then I’m good. An outline is ‘This is my starting point. These are the kinds of things I want to talk about or kinds of things I need to look at.” — Eric Sippel
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
I would highly recommend watching the full video. Only two and a half minutes. But in case you choose not to, the story goes… there was a former Under Secretary of Defense giving a speech at a large conference who interrupts his own remarks while drinking out of Styrofoam cup. He smiles as he looks down and he shares an anecdote.
Last year, when he was still the Under Secretary, they flew him there business class, picked him up in a car from the airport, checked him into his hotel for him, escorted him to his room. And the next morning, there was another car waiting to pick him up from the hotel that drove him to the venue, showed him through the back entrance, then green room. In the green room, there was someone waiting for him with a hot cup of coffee in a ceramic mug.
The following year he went (the year he was giving the above speech), he was no longer the Under Secretary. He flew to the city on coach, took a taxi from the airport to the hotel, checked himself in, took another taxi to the venue the next morning, found his own way backstage after arriving at the front door. When he asked where he could get coffee, someone pointed him towards the coffee machine in the back corner and told him to serve himself in a Styrofoam cup.
The intended lesson here is that the ceramic cup was never meant for him, but the position in which he holds. He deserved the Styrofoam cups, everyone does. And that no matter how far you go in life with all the perks that come with promotions and status and power, never forget that that will last only for as long as you hold that position.
There are obviously rare exceptions. But that is also the question that us as LPs ask. Hell, I’m sure it’s what a lot of VCs ask themselves about the founders they could back. Were you successful because or in spite of your last firm/company?
For founders and founding GPs, the attribution and causation is clearer than if you were an operator or other team member at a VC firm. We begin to peel the onion with questions like: What did you do in your last job title that no one else with that job title has ever done? For operators, did you create something and meaningfully lead something that created mass societal value and/or independently change the course of the company? For non-founding GPs at VC firms, did you individually drive disproportionate returns for the overall fund at your last firm? Attribution is often harder than one would think at prior institutions since many institutions succeed as teams, as opposed to individuals. So if success came as being a core member of the team, how much of your last team are you bringing with you? If not, how can you ramp up quickly to be a top performer?
The DGQ series is a series dedicated to my process of question discovery and execution. When curiosity is the why, DGQ is the how. It’s an inside scoop of what goes on in my noggin’. My hope is that it offers some illumination to you, my readers, so you can tackle the world and build relationships with my best tools at your disposal. It also happens to stand for damn good questions, or dumb and garbled questions. I’ll let you decide which it falls under.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
Recently, I met an LP who told me an interesting framework, derived from something Warren Buffett once said. “Every pitch needs to have energy, intelligence, and integrity. And without the last, the first two can lead bad outcomes for the LP.”
Energy — Why now for the world? Why now for your LPs? Why is now the time for you? Why do you have to do this and nothing else? Can your pitch get people really excited about the opportunity? About you? When they wake up the next morning, are they still thinking about your conversation, or have they moved on with their morning to focus on sending the kids to school or what their schedule looks like for the day?
Intelligence — Do you know what you’re talking about? Have you done so much research and have so much lived experience here that you are the one of the world’s foremost experts here? Are you a thoughtful and intentional person around all aspects of your life?
Integrity — Can I trust you? Why should I trust you? Do you have a track record of maintaining long friendships? What’s the longest friendship you’ve maintained? Do you have an strong moral compass? How is it exhibited in even the smallest actions you take? If your and my interests ever clash, what is your course of action? Where do you sit in the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? What set of needs are you primarily motivated by?
Interestingly enough, just a few hours later, I was catching up with a good old friend who’s putting together a pitch for his new venture. And he was telling me one of the pieces of feedback that he got was that there wasn’t enough dopamine induced from his pitch. Which was an interesting piece of commentary. The person giving him that piece of feedback believed that all pitches should induce three types of hormones:
Dopamine — known for joy, excitement, and motivation. To draw a parallel, “energy” under Warren Buffett’s framework.
Oxytocin — known for building trust and empathy. Or “integrity.”
Serotonin — known for calmness, well-being, but in the context here: optimism. I’m not sure if this draws a strict line of correlation to Warren Buffett’s framework, but nevertheless, something useful to think about. Why will the world tomorrow be better than the one today? What can I look forward to?
In my buddy’s pitch, he included a lot of facts and research, promoting oxytocin in the reader. But the pitch lacked excitement and an urgency to take action. In other words, dopamine.
Most decks charting new territory and betting in the non-obvious carry too much oxytocin, responsible for creating trust (i.e. data, information, synthesis of market trends, why the GP is legible, testimonials, track record, etc.). So much to prove factually why this should exist. A very left brain approach.
Most decks betting on a hot topic, industry or idea index heavily on dopamine. Why this is exciting? Why we have to do this now?
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
Beezer Clarkson from Sapphire Partners joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on four GPs at VC funds to ask four different questions.
Precursor Ventures’ Charles Hudson asks what is the one strongly held belief about emerging managers that she no longer believes is true.
NextView Ventures’ Stephanie Palmeri asks how much should an established firm evolve versus stick to their guns.
Humanrace Capital’s Suraj Mehta asks what the best way to build brand presence is.
Rackhouse Venture Capital’s Kevin Novak asks if you’ve deployed your capital faster than you expected, what’s the best path forward with the remaining capital you have left?
Beezer Clarkson leads Sapphire Partners‘ investments in venture funds domestically and internationally. Beezer began her career in financial services over 20 years ago at Morgan Stanley in its global infrastructure group. Since, she has held various direct and indirect venture investment roles, as well as operational roles in software business development at Hewlett Packard. Prior to joining Sapphire in 2012, Beezer managed the day-to-day operations of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Global Network, which then had $7 billion under management across 16 venture funds worldwide.
In 2016, Beezer led the launch of OpenLP, an effort to help foster greater understanding in the entrepreneur-to-LP tech ecosystem. Beezer earned a bachelor’s in government from Wesleyan University, where she served on the board of trustees and currently serves as an advisor to the Wesleyan Endowment Investment Committee. She is currently serving on the board of the NVCA and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
[00:00] Intro [01:22] Where does Beezer’s advice come from? [04:03] Charles and Precursor Ventures [04:47] What’s something Beezer used to believe about seed stage venture that she no longer believes in [08:04] Why did Charles choose to bet on pre-seed companies? [10:21] What did LPs push back on when Charles was starting Precursor? [12:18] Definition of early stage investing today [14:38] Steph and NextView Ventures [18:13] When do you stick your knitting or move on from the past as an established firm? [30:48] Is venture investing in AI fundamentally different than investing in other types of companies? [32:52] Does competition for a deal mean you’ve already lost it? [36:09] Suraj and Humanrace Capital [36:54] How should emerging managers build their brand? [38:38] The audience most emerging managers don’t focus on but should [40:39] How much does visible brand presence matter? [43:47] Useful or not: Media exposure in the data room [45:40] Backstreet boys [46:37] Kevin and Rackhouse Venture Capital [47:28] What Kevin is best known for [48:03] Updated fund modelling when you’re ahead on your proposed deployment period [58:00] The typical questions Beezer gets on LPACs [1:03:22] Is venture broken? [1:06:41] David’s favorite Beezer moment from Season 1
“Whatever the evolution of venture is if you’re just following someone else, the odds of you doing as well as them is just harder and that is probably a truism about life.” — Beezer Clarkson
“If you’re going to get a 2X in venture over 20 years, frankly, as an LP, there are alternatives from a pure dollars in the ground perspective. But if you’re looking at trying to capture innovation, which AI is now one of the great innovations, where are you going to capture that if not playing in venture? So is venture broken is a question of who are you.” — Beezer Clarkson
“If you’re competing for the deal, you’ve already lost it.” — Beezer Clarkson
“I think the competition is more: Did I see it with enough time to build the conviction and build the relationship relative to the other people that might be coming in?” — Stephanie Palmeri
“Recycling is incredibly important, but incredibly hard to plan for, especially as early as you’re coming in, unless you’re seeing evidence of acqui-hires today and you know you’re going to have those dollars coming in. Obviously, really hard. So I would not bank your farm on that.” — Beezer Clarkson
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
A good friend of mine recently asked me a question for an article he was writing (Stay tuned for his masterpiece which I’ll be sure to share on socials.): “What makes you more likely to reinvest in Fund II or III?” Which is a really good question and something I’ve been thinking out more and more in the past few months as a number of my bets have come back to me for that conversation.
Before I share my thoughts in full here, couple caveats:
I’m a small check. Let’s never forget that fact. Whether I invest in the fund or not, it will not make a meaningful dent in the final fund size. But it looks great when X% of your LPs re-up into the next, and some GPs like to highlight which.
I’m a nobody. If you’re a friend reading this piece, I know what you’re going to say, but in the grander scheme of things, I’m a nobody. And hopefully some day, I will be a somebody, but that’s not the reality today. Meaning unless you don’t have any real institutional backing who’s committing to a re-up, my name reasonably won’t impact your ability to raise your next fund. Two reasons:
Again, see Exhibit 2’s first sentence.
If a manager in my portfolio is about to go back to market, I would have known months, possibly a year, ahead of the raise. And by that time, I would have put you in touch with many of the LPs in my network at that point. So, anyone who does know who I am would have already met with said GP before the fundraise, and any namedropping of my name would be old news by the time they see the deck.
Alright, I’ve delayed my answer long enough.
So there are few things I look for, opportunistically, though some more intentionally than others. And in no particular order:
Are the people I meet through the GP impressive and/or thought-provoking and/or thoughtful people?
This includes the founders they back. The founders they think about backing and ask me to help them diligence. The people they plan to hire or have hired. Other LPs in the same fund. Friends of theirs I meet over game night. Their spouse we do a double date with. Again, all of these are casual connections for the most part. And no, I am not assessing with a clipboard, binder, and monocle every single person I meet via the GP. But my rough litmus test here is: Do I feel more inspired, less, or net neutral when I interact with the afore-mentioned individuals?
Over time, do I gain more conviction in my initial bet on the manager or less? Am I getting more and more impressed with the manager’s ability to grow and learn over time?
What does the quality of revenue, talent, funding, and milestones in the underlying portfolio look like? How involved has the GP been in each company’s revenue, talent, funding, and milestones? How much of their portfolio company’s success did they will into existence?
I should note that this really matters when you want to build an institution. In almost all ways, the fund I initially invest in should be the worst version of the firm that anyone ever has to see again. Each fund should get better than the last. Each fund should have more surface area for luck to stick than the last. And one of the most reliable ways of doing so is to be there for your companies when they need it. And for your founders to be grateful for your support.
Did the GP do what they said they were going to do? If not, how much were they off and why?
Not everything goes your way I get it. Ideally, as an LP, things do. But the second best result is that it doesn’t, but you learn some really powerful lessons that sets you better up for the next fund.
With the next fund, does the strategy change significantly? Does the team change significantly? Does the fund size grow dramatically?
When making non-GP or partner hires, are you outsourcing responsibility and learning or mentoring the next generation?
For fund size, I don’t have hard numbers I look at, but growing from a $10M to a $25M to a $50M fund is reasonable. But going from a $5M to $100M is not.
Over the course of the last two or so years, have I met someone who is a lot more impressive than the GP I’ve already backed?
Admittedly, marginally better is not enough for me.
Is my communication line with the GP still as strong (ideally stronger) than when I initially committed?
I’m not here to bug a GP every single week or even every single month. And I am always aware that I shouldn’t be taking too much time up from a GP for a selfish reason. But if I do need to make a call, email or text, how quickly do they get back to me?
Five years from now, can I confidently say this person is one of the top 5 most impressive people I’ve met in the last five years? What about 10 years from now?
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
