Tag: lp

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The Work I Do with GPs

work, hands

I’m fortunate enough I get to work with some of the most interesting and stellar GPs out there. It’s never been a business I’m actively trying to grow. Outside of me backing managers myself, every so often I’ll get a friend who refers their friend to me and asks me to help them out with thinking through fundraising. It’s always been opportunistic. And even when I work with folks, it’s not primarily about intros. In fact, in all my working relationships, I never offer intros as part of the agreement. But more so working with them to understand how the GPs can better tell their story and run a more institutional fundraising process. Occasionally, I would get asked to advise when a firm should bring in an investor relations professional. But that last part, a piece for the future. So, all that to say:

  1. I’m not an expert in everything, but I do try to actively learn best practices in the market. If I don’t know something, I will find it out for you and/or put you in touch with the best practitioner on it.
  2. I’m now overcapacity. I don’t have the bandwidth to work with every manager that comes my way. I have other things I want to do and am working on.
  3. My primary job is still to support the GPs I back myself.

So, I’m just going to share below exactly what I do when I work with a GP, so that you don’t have to come find me for help. Because we do effectively the below. This approach has also evolved over time. And this is my current approach, circa September 2025. My job is also to help GPs better understand LPs and where they come from. So, while the saying goes as “If you know one LP, you only know one LP,” my job (and personal fascination) is to define and delineate the nuance. The only things I cannot help with if you’re only reading the below are:

  1. Be your accountability partner. Part of my role with GPs is also making sure GPs stick to their promises. Discipline. It’s easy to plan. Hard to execute.
  2. Debrief on LP conversations and pipeline management.
  3. And figure out your LP-GP fit, or your ideal LP archetype as a function of your fund size, your strategy, your experience level and your story.

This might also be one of the few pieces I write that some pre-reading may help contextualize what I will write below.

Most of the time I work with folks who are mid-raise. Not always, but most of the times. So I’m stepping in where there’s already some infrastructure, but not a lot, usually bootstrapped and duct taped together. Not a bad thing. As long as it works, I don’t touch much during the raise itself. Then we work on things and cleaning up systems post-raise or in-between raises. The best time to strategize and plan for a raise is at least six months in advance. But that’s neither here nor there. So what do I do?

  1. I ask the GP(s) to pitch me the fund. We simulate email exchanges, first meeting, second meeting, and due diligence as if I were the target LP persona. I offer no commentary. I am purely the observer. You can do this with most people who do not know your strategy well. Friendly LPs. Other GPs. But I find it most helpful if you can to do this with people who have a great attention to detail, specifically in the literary sense: lawyers, authors, therapists, podcasters, professors, editors, scriptwriters, showrunners, and so on.
  2. Then, I share all the risks of investing in said manager that I can think of. What are the elephants in the room? What parts of the GP, the GP’s story, the strategy, the track record, and the complexity of the story would make it really hard to pass the investment committee (IC)? What might be moments of hesitation? No matter how big or small. There’s a saying that a friend once told me, “When your spouse complains about you not washing the dishes, it’s not about the dishes.”
  3. Label and categorize each risk as a flaw, limitation, or restriction.
    • Flaws: Traits you need to overcome within 1-2 fundraising cycles (~2-5 years). The faster, the more measurable, the better. You can’t just say you’re going to overcome these flaws. You need to have KPIs against each of these.
    • Limitations: Risks that the world or that particular LP believes is true. Like being a Fund I. Or being a solo GP.
    • Restrictions: What you prevent yourself from doing. Think Batman’s no killing code. In GP land, it’s only investing in a particular demographic or vertical. It’s only investing in the Bay Area. And so on.
  4. Stack rank all of them. Depending on the LP you’re pitching, figure out the minimum viable risk list that LP may be willing to accept. It’s not always obvious.
  5. You should always address limitations as early on in the conversation. My preference is in the email exchange or at the very minimum, in the first two slides of the deck. In other words, “here are the primary reasons you shouldn’t invest in me if you don’t like…” Think of it like the elephant in the room. Make it explicit. Don’t wait for LPs to have private investment committee (IC) conversations without you in the room. Or worse, they implicitly, whether consciously or subconsciously, think of the limitations in their head. Having been in multiple LP conversations and a fly on the wall in IC meetings, sometimes an LP can’t fully describe why they’re passing, just that they are.
  6. Next, figure out for each LP in your existing and future pipeline when are flaws also limitations. When are restrictions also limitations?
    • When a restriction is a limitation, there isn’t an LP-GP fit. So, you need to go find LPs, who don’t see your restrictions as limitations. Another reason you should address elephants in the room as early as possible.
    • When a flaw is a limitation, you need to fire yourself before the LP fires you. You need to say “No” before an LP does. Be respectful of their time, but maintain that relationship for the future. Reaching back out every 1-2 quarters to catch up is something I highly recommend. Any longer, LPs will forget about you. And no, that does not mean, “Can I add you to my monthly/quarterly LP update?” No LP will say no, but almost always will your updates die in their inbox. If you don’t care about your relationship with them, why should they?
    • Are you ready for an institutional fundraise? How much of the institutional data room (use this as a reference if you don’t know what that means) do you have ready? And for each flaw and restriction, do you have something in the data room (even if it’s in the FAQ/DDQ) that helps hedge against it?
  7. All that said, you also need to figure out what your superpower is. And you usually only need just one, but you have to be god-tier in that one superpower. There cannot be a close second. Oftentimes, it’s less obvious than you think it is. With all the hedging of risks above, you also need to give an LP to be your champion. You must spike in something that impresses the LP and despite all your flaws and restrictions, that you’ll still go far. And the more closely your superpower is aligned with at least 2-3 of the five (sourcing, picking, winning, supporting, exiting), the better. And you must make sure that it is made explicit to the LP as early in your conversations as possible.

Photo by Ümit Bulut on Unsplash

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.

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Gratitude and Deal Flow

thank you, gratitude

A few months ago, my good friend Sam hosted a happy hour for LPs, which he invited me to. There I caught up with a former fund-of-funds (FoF) manager who has booked some of the most impressive returns I’ve ever heard of for a pure FoF play. For context, more than one fund generated over 15X net distributions to their LPs. The numbers were enough to impress me. But I had to ask: “Across all the funds you were a part of, what is something that you look for that you’re reasonably confident others don’t?”

He said two things, but one stood out. “Gratitude. I look for managers who never forget who put them in business.”

In all honesty, I found that odd. Not because I disagreed. I love folks who recognize and are grateful to the people who got them to where they are today. But because it didn’t occur to me that it should be the top two things one should optimize for when picking managers. Naturally, it kept gnawing at me.

In my own experience, gratitude seems to compound. Grateful individuals thank you often and sometimes when you least expect it, and more often than not, assuming you’ve done real work to help them, they compliment behind your back. The people they talk to end up learning about you. Their teammates learn about you. And you’ve earned multiple occasions to meet their teammates and those close to them. When a GP or founder’s teammates leave and start new things, those people often think to call you first.

Grateful GPs often hire talent who are just as humble, and in turn, as second nature, extend their appreciation often. Those same GPs are more likely to invest in people who have similar traits as well. So, it begins this flywheel.

As an LP, I look for emerging GPs whose network and deal flow compounds over time. That the first moment I meet them is the smallest network they will ever have again. So I expect and underwrite a GP’s ability to compound deal flow over time. So Fund n+1 is better than Fund n, and Fund n+2 is exponentially better than Fund n. Gratitude is one way GPs can increase the surface area for serendipity to stick. For there to be more quality inbound opportunities in the future.

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

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.

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How to Increase Dialogue with your LPs | El Pack w/ Kelli Fontaine | Superclusters

kelli fontaine

Kelli Fontaine from Cendana Capital joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on three GPs at VC funds to ask three different questions.

The Council’s Amber Illig asked what happens when a solo GP is incapacitated or passes away.

Oceans Ventures’ Steven Rosenblatt asked why most LPs follow the decision-making of other LPs.

NeuCo Academy’s Jonathan Ting asked what LPs think about GPs asking for help.

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 Amber, Steven, and Jonathan for joining us on the show!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[01:26] Kelli’s new data discoveries
[04:32] How did Kelli underwrite a manager with no LinkedIn?
[06:19] Is too much data ever a problem?
[08:18] Vintage year benchmarking
[09:49] Telltale signs on GPs’ social profiles
[10:57] Data Kelli wishes she could collect
[15:59] Enter Amber and her new podcast
[18:08] Amber’s background and The Council
[19:08] How does Amber define top companies?
[24:25] How can a solo GP set the firm up well in case they’re no longer there?
[26:11] Kelli’s number one fear with solo GPs
[28:30] Best practices for generational transfers
[32:28] Solo GPs and their future plans
[36:51] Enter Steven and Oceans
[42:38] Would Kelli ever include AI summaries as part of the get-to-know-someone phase?
[44:18] Why do LPs follow other LP’s decision-making?
[48:43] What are the traits of an LP who is likely to have independent thinking?
[51:16] Why don’t LPs talk directly with founders?
[57:59] Enter Jonathan and NeuCo Academy
[1:00:05] Is Kelli seeing more secondaries firms?
[1:01:56] How often should GPs lean on LPs for help?
[1:07:22] Are most LPs helpful?
[1:12:21] What kinds of questions does Kelli get from her own GPs?
[1:15:39] Kelli’s last piece of advice

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SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“If that fund deployed over a year versus a manager of ours that deployed over four years, they’re going to look very different. So we do vintage-year benchmarking to see how their MOIC stacks up against how the revenue of companies stack up.” – Kelli Fontaine

“Team risk is the biggest risk in venture.” – Kelli Fontaine

“The same top ten firms are not the same that they were 15 years ago, and probably Silicon Valley. Generational transfer is very hard.” – Kelli Fontaine

“If you make the brand bigger than just you that it comes from DNA, support systems, things that you stand for that have had support to get there—so once that brand is made, the other team members embody that brand as well. That’s the way to do it. It’s really empowering other team members to own a part in that brand-building—outwardly and inwardly in decision-making.” – Kelli Fontaine

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.

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81% of America is Underfunded | Vijen Patel & Grady Buchanan | Superclusters | S5PSE1

vijen patel, grady buchanan

“19% of our GDP attracts about 55% of capital inflows, aka venture activity, and 81% is underinvested.” – Vijen Patel

We’re back with one of our crowd favorite formats, where we bring on one LP and one GP, and share why that LP invested in this GP. This time, we have Grady Buchanan, co-founder of NVNG, and Vijen Patel, founding partner of The 81 Collection.

Vijen Patel is an entrepreneur and investor. He founded The 81 Collection, a high growth equity firm in boring industries. Previously, he founded what is now known as Tide Cleaners. He bootstrapped what eventually became the largest dry cleaner in the country (1,200 locations) before selling to Procter & Gamble in 2018. Before Tide Cleaners, he worked in private equity, McKinsey & Company, and Goldman Sachs. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two kids.

You can find Vijen on his socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijenpatel/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/itsvijen

Grady Buchanan is an institutional and risk-based asset allocation professional with a passion for bringing venture capital to those who have the interest. He founded NVNG in late 2019 and oversees investment strategies, the firm’s venture fund pipeline, manager sourcing, due diligence, and external events. Before launching NVNG, Grady worked with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s (WARF) $3B investment portfolio, focused on private equity and venture capital initiatives, including fund diligence, investment strategy, and policy. Grady is based in Milwaukee, WI.

You can find Grady on his socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gradynvng/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/GradyBuchanan

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[02:41] The pressure of quitting a PE job for dry cleaning
[05:09] Vijen’s self talk as a founder
[06:50] How to overcome doubt
[09:00] How Vijen learned customer success
[10:35] What did Pressbox become?
[12:41] The dichotomy between society’s needs and what gets funded
[14:19] How did Grady go from selling pancakes to being an LP?
[23:51] Why did Grady think he bombed the LP interview?
[29:15] What is The 81 Collection?
[32:22] How did Vijen meet Grady?
[34:39] How is Vijen fluent in Spanish?
[36:40] How did Grady meet Vijen?
[42:21] How did Grady underwrite 81 Collection?
[44:44] What about Vijen made Grady hesitate?
[48:35] What’s one thing about 81 Collection that could’ve gone wrong?
[50:33] The 3 things that create alpha
[52:42] Why does NVNG have the coolest fund of funds’ names?
[53:47] The legacy Grady plans to leave behind
[56:06] The legacy Vijen plans to leave behind

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SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“I wrote down everyone’s concerns, and I just sat on it. A lot of the founders we like to work with, the ones who we really love are the ones who take it in and listen, write it down, then take some time to synthesize everything and then they’ll act with conviction. ‘Why is this stupid? Tell me why. Let’s go deeper and deeper.’ And oftentimes these reasons are very rational and slowly over time, what if I derisk this by doing that?” – Vijen Patel

“19% of our GDP attracts about 55% of capital inflows, aka venture activity, and 81% is underinvested.” – Vijen Patel

“There’s this crazy stat we recall often: the 50 richest families on Earth, who often build in this 81, they’ve held, on average, their business for 44 years.” – Vijen Patel

“We invest in only amazing managers; we will not invest in every amazing manager.” – Grady Buchanan

“Alpha’s three things: information asymmetry, access, and, actually, taxes.” – Vijen Patel

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.

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On GP Commits

backflip, commit

1% GP commits have been a part of investing history for as long as most people can remember. But actually finds its origin as a vestigial part of IRS Revenue Procedures from 1974, more specifically Rev. Proc. 74-17, which stated “the interests of all the general partners, taken together in each material item of partnership income, gain, loss, deduction or credit is equal to at least one percent.”

And yes, technically, in 1989, Rev. Proc. 89-12 also created a lower bound of 0.2%. “In no event… may the general partners’ aggregate interest at any time in any material item be less than .2 percent.” But all of that was overturned in 2003.

Ever since then, the 1% GP commit has withstood the test of time.

But… I’ve always felt that to be a weird checkbox that LPs have for GPs. I get the element around incentive alignment. But why is incentive alignment a static number? If a college student is just starting a Fund I, still with student loans, and raising a $10M fund, $100K is a meaningful proportion of their net worth. Hell, they may not even have it. At the same time, a successful spinout who used to be a GP at a large established fund who’s received distributions already and raising $100M fund will likely have more than just $1M. And $1M alone is not a meaningful proportion of her/his net worth.

So, I think GP commits should be a function of a GP’s net worth, not the fund size.

I want to know that the GP is betting their career over on this next enterprise. I want to know that the GP is more motivated today than they were ever before. Even if they’ve already hit that career-defining success.

I’m looking for the fire under their belly. Why does this upcoming fund matter so much to them?

Personally, it’s not that I only choose to focus on Fund I’s and II’s. I’m open to the idea of other Roman numeral-ed funds, but I usually get the sense that the economics of commitment are misaligned with the intentions and motivations of the GP themselves.

Photo by Drew Farwell on Unsplash

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.

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How Many Exceptions Are Too Many? | El Pack w/ John Felix | Superclusters

john felix

Pattern Ventures’ John Felix joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on three GPs at VC funds to ask three different questions.

Atria Ventures’ Chris Leiter asked about the common mistakes LPs make when underwriting solo GPs.

Garuda Ventures’ Arpan Punyani asked how quickly do most LPs get to conviction. First 10 minutes? First meeting?

Geek Ventures’ Ihar Mahaniok asked how LPs evaluate Fund IIs when the Fund I has no distributions.

John Felix is a General Partner and Head of Research at Pattern Ventures, a specialized fund of funds focused on backing the best small venture managers. Prior to Pattern, John served as the Head of Emerging Managers at Allocate where he was an early employee and helped to launch Allocate’s emerging manager platform. Prior to joining Allocate, John worked at Bowdoin College’s Office of Investments, helping to invest the $2.8 billion endowment across all asset classes, focusing on venture capital. Prior to Bowdoin, John worked at Edgehill Endowment Partners, a $2 billion boutique OCIO. At Edgehill, John was responsible for building out the firm’s venture capital portfolio, sourcing and leading all venture fund commitments. John started his career at Washington University’s Investment Management Company as a member of the small investment team responsible for managing the university’s now $13 billion endowment. John graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a BSBA in Finance and Entrepreneurship.

You can find John on his socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfelix12/
Twitter: https://x.com/johnfelix123

And huge thanks to Chris, Arpan, and Ihar for joining us on the show!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[02:20] What’s changed for John since our last recording?
[04:08] What is Pattern Ventures?
[06:22] Why is Pattern’s cutoff for funds they’re interested in at $50M?
[07:32] How does John define noise?
[09:34] Do non-sexy industries require larger seed funds?
[11:36] How does think about overlap in the underlying startup portfolio?
[15:22] Enter Chris and Atria Ventures
[18:03] Should solo GPs scale past themselves?
[24:14] Partnerships have more risk than solo GPs
[26:10] How does John think about spinouts from large VC firms?
[27:53] The psychology of being a partner at a big firm versus your own
[30:38] Enter Arpan and Garuda Ventures
[31:26] Geoguessr
[32:52] Garuda’s podcast, Brick by Brick
[34:52] How quickly do LPs know they intuitively want to invest in a GP?
[38:02] The analogy to what GPs do to founders
[43:50] There are many ways to make money
[44:57] Quantifying intuition as an investor
[49:12] Enter Ihar and Geek Ventures
[49:36] How do LPs evaluate Fund IIs when Fund I has no DPI?
[53:01] How do you know if a GP did what they said they were going to do?
[54:47] What if the key value driver is off-thesis, but everything else is on-thesis?
[56:21] Is signing 1 uncapped SAFE per fund reasonable?
[57:14] What is the allowable percentage of exceptions in a fund?
[1:01:32] Good vs bad exceptions
[1:06:06] Reminders that we are in the good old days
[1:07:31] John’s last piece of advice to new allocators
[1:09:00] David’s favorite moment from John’s last episode

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“In life, it’s always easy to justify ‘why now’ is not the right time. I think it’s hard to justify ‘why now’ is the right time to do something.” – John Felix

“We love investing in things that are contrarian and non-consensus, but there has to be a path to becoming consensus because something can’t remain non-consensus forever. There has to be a catalyst that the market eventually realizes this or else the company’s not going to be able to raise venture capital. It’s not going to be able to sustain it and continue to grow and survive.” – John Felix

“The type of spinouts we want to back are the people who are successful in spite of working at the big brand, not because they worked at the big brand.” – John Felix

“You need to earn the right to start your new firm to do your own thing. I don’t think enough people realize that.” – John Felix

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.

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How to Boost Engagement: Proven LP Relationship Building Techniques

A while back, my friend Augustine, CEO and founder of Digify, asked me to write something for his company, Digify’s blog, about how I think about maintaining relationships between fundraising cycles when I was still an investor relations professional. As such, I wrote a mini two-part series on the frameworks and tactics I use to maintain LP relationships. Been given the liberty to cross-post on this humble blog of mine, in hopes that it helps any emerging managers or IR professionals here.

Voila, two of two! The first one you can find here (also linked below).

Author’s note: My promise to you is that we’ll share advice you’ve likely never heard before. By the time you get to the end of this article, if you’re intimidated, then we’ll have done our job. Because that’s just how much it takes to fight in the same arena as people I’ve personally admired over the years and work to emulate and iterate daily. That said, this won’t be comprehensive, but a compilation of N of 1 practices that hopefully serve as tools in your toolkit. As such, we will be separating this piece into Part 1 and 2. The first of which is about overarching frameworks that govern how I think about managing relationships. The second of which focuses on tactical elements governed by the initial frameworks brought up.

You can find the first piece of two here.

It’s easy to stay high-level and strategic. I won’t. I personally find it helpful to have tactical examples on how to execute frameworks on LP relationship management. As your mileage may vary, the below will hopefully serve as tools for the toolkit, as opposed to Commandments or the Constitution for investor relations practices.

Tactic 1: Co-create

In general, people who help create a product have more mental and emotional buy-in to the continued success of said product. It’s why influencers leverage their fanbase to generate new ideas for content. It’s why laws and propositions are voted on. It’s why your parents asked what you wanted for dinner. It’s why, if you’re a junior team member and want budget and resources for your project, you ask for feedback from leadership (often). While not every LP wants to be intimately involved in the day-to-day, and even if they don’t end up helping, it still goes a long way when you ask for their feedback and advice for major firm decisions, regardless of whether they’re on the LPAC or not. Building strong LP relationships requires making them feel like true partners in the decision-making process. They want to be involved in:

  • Hiring/promoting a new partner or GP
  • Pivoting or expanding fund strategy
  • Increasing the length of the deployment period or fund term
  • Generating early DPI
  • Breaking a partnership

LPs want to hear news before they become news. And if time and expertise allows, they’d like to write the press release with you.

In addition, if you have the bandwidth and resources, host events with them on topic areas they’re interested in. Even if it’s a small gathering of four to six people, it’s the intentionality and the willingness that counts.

Tactic 2: Follow up without asks, often and thoughtfully

I think a lot about Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve. Effectively, how long does it take someone to forget new information and as a function, how often do you need to remind someone for them to retain memory of that new piece of information? Within an hour, the average person forgets half of what they learned. Within 24 hours, the average person forgets 70% of it. And within a week, they forget 90%. I won’t get too technical here, but if you are interested in learning more, I highly recommend reading this paper: Murre and Dros’ Replication and Analysis of Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve.

And so, in theory, every time someone’s memory of you, of your thesis, or of your firm drops below 90% memory retention, you should remind them. Rough intervals of which are within minutes, within 2 hours, within a day, within a week, within 30 days, and so on. In practice, after you catch up with an LP, text them a note saying that you’ll follow up within the day. And yes, texts are often far more effective in maintaining relationships with LPs than emails. Emails are read by other team members and often lost in inboxes. The only exception to this rule is if you or your LP is an RIA, and requires all communication to be archived, including text.

Outside of scheduled catchups, spend a lot of time tracking people’s hobbies and interests in your CRM, and sending LPs an article, video, interview or insight that reminded you of them or that you think they’d genuinely appreciate; it goes a long way. Oh, and sending thank you notes more often than you think you need to, especially unprompted ones, really helps cement relationships. Over time, this will become a habit. Here’s an example of an email I send often:

Hey [name],

Read this article [link article] this morning as I was grabbing my morning coffee and it reminded me of our conversation half a year back on [insert topic you were talking about].

One of my favorite lines from the piece was [insert quote from the article] – something I thought you would really get a kick out of.

I know you’re busy, so there’s no need to reply to this email, but I want to send this your way in case it’s interesting for you, as well as send you good vibes on this beautiful Tuesday.

Keep staying awesome,

David

Two things here:

  1. You do not have to write like me.
  2. Telling people that they don’t have to reply is more likely to result in a reply. Works for me 80-90% of the time when sending to a warm connection. Though, your mileage may vary.

When I had Felipe Valencia from Veronorte on my podcast, he mentioned that he brought Colombian coffee for GPs whenever he visited the States. I also know of IR people and GPs who do the same for LPs. And vice versa from LPs to Heads of IR and GPs, especially from our Asian counterparts, where gifting culture is more common. Do note though that if your LP is from a public institution—sovereign wealth fund, pension, endowment, or sometimes, even a large corporation—individuals are not allowed to accept gifts more than $50, or sometimes none at all.

Tactic 3: Prepare to meet ahead of budget cycles

One of my favorite lessons from Top Tier Capital’s co-founder, David York, was on when to see LPs as a function of budgetary cycles.

“Going to see accounts before budgets are set helps get your brand and your story in the mind of the budget setter. In the case of the US, budgets are set in January and July, depending on the fiscal year. In the case of Japan, budgets are set at the end of March, early April. To get into the budget for Tokyo, you gotta be working with the client in the fall to get them ready to do it for the next fiscal year. [For] Korea, the budgets are set in January, but they don’t really get executed until the first of April. So there’s time in there where you can work on those things. The same thing is true with Europe. A lot of budgets are mid-year. So you develop some understanding of patterns. You need to give yourself, for better or worse if you’re raising money, two to three years of relationship-building with clients.”

Knowing the timing of when to see who is important, especially these days when you’re required to meet and build relationships across the world. Strategic timing can make or break an LP relationship, particularly when it comes to securing allocations.

While the above are usually for pensions, corporates and sovereign wealth funds, endowments, foundations, and large family offices all have recurring cycles. And meeting a few months before the ball has to roll can mean the difference between you being a line item somewhere and being on top of the docket.

Tactic 4: The 11-star experiences

I first learned of this when tuning into a Reid Hoffman and Brian Chesky interview, which I highly recommend. It was further reinforced as I spent more time learning from people in the hospitality and culinary world.

To summarize, everyone knows what a 1- to 5-star experience looks and feels like. But when everyone is optimizing on a 5-point scale, to outcompete others, you must compete on a scale they have yet to conceptualize. And so a five out of five experience is one where you leave happy and content enough to leave a glowing review because all the boxes were checked. Everything in your ideal vacation, retreat, or dining experience was fulfilled. So… if that’s the new baseline, then what does a six out of five experience look like?

Maybe that’s sending a limo to pick someone up at the airport, so they don’t have to find their own way to the establishment. That could also be finding your guest’s favorite bottle of champagne and having it ready when they enter your premises.

So, if that’s a six out of five, what does a seven out of five look like? You’ve pre-booked everything your guest is interested in before they show up and without them having to lift a finger. Or you learned that on their entire NY trip, your diners never had the chance to try an original New York hot dog from a street vendor, so you replace one course of the menu just so that they can try it. (True story. Would highly recommend reading Will Guidara’s Unreasonable Hospitality.)

So, if that’s a seven-star experience, what does an eight look like? What about a nine-star? 10-star? 11-star?

At some point, the stakes get quite insane. Meeting their role model from the history books. Using time travel or teleportation devices. Meeting aliens. But trust me, if competitive sports taught me anything, it’s that it’s good to envision the impossible as possible. And, the most important part to envision in this entire exercise is the genuine, and unstoppable smile that appears.

So what does this look like in practice? I cannot list everything out there, because it’s 1. not possible, and 2. if I can spell out a true 7- or 8-star experience, it’s generalizable. And if it is, it won’t feel special. That said, let me list out some I’ve done in the past that hopefully serve as inspiration. Caveat, I’m a Bay Area native, and I still live in the Bay Area.

  • An LP tells me they’re coming to visit the Bay. I send them a suggested itinerary based on the number of days they’re here, which balances both work and some under-the-radar touristy things. On top of that, I send hotels I suggest, restaurants I recommend, and more. All of which I offer to call on their behalf because I know the staff there and I might be able to get them a discounted rate or an automatic upgrade.
  • If I recommend a restaurant, and they agree to host a meeting there or just to try it out, I call the restaurant, tell them that they’re really important people to me (can do so if I’m a regular patron there already), and on top of that, I ask them to give the guests a kitchen tour.
  • I ask a local chocolatier to custom make some bonbons for me that are inspired by the individuals visiting, that I give to the LPs when I meet them in person.
  • If it’s a rush order, I call one of the long-established fortune cookie shops in San Francisco for them to do a custom order and write custom fortunes inside each fortune cookie. And inside each fortune is a fun fact about each person I’ve introduced them to meet while they’re here.
  • When it comes to intros, 70% of my intros will be relevant to their business interests. Startups. VCs. Other LPs. 20% of my intros are my recommendation of who they should meet but might not know they should. 10% are 1-2 people I think extremely highly of who are outside of technology and startups, but will offer a fascinating perspective to the world. A YouTuber with millions of subscribers. A legendary restaurateur. A lead game designer. An author. A Nobel prize winning professor. Naturally, I do the last selectively. My job is also to protect their bandwidth. For the last set of intros, I also don’t take intro requests.

All-in-all, LPs, like the rest of us, are human. We’re emotional creatures. We love stories. We are naturally curious. We love wonder. Their job doesn’t always allow for them to be, especially with tons of back-to-back diligence meetings, conversations with stakeholders, and so on. So it makes me personally really happy when I can balance suspense and surprise when I help them craft trips to the Bay.

In closing

These are just a few strategies and tactics among many. The goal with this piece was never to be exhaustive, but to inspire possibilities and your favorite practices. And if you’re willing, I, as well as the Digify team, are always all ears about practices you’ve come to appreciate and build into your own routine. Until the next time, keep staying awesome!

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!

Any views expressed on this blog are mine and mine alone. They are not a representation of values held by On Deck, DECODE, or any other entity I am or have been associated with. They are for informational and entertainment purposes only. None of this is legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Please do your own diligence before investing in startups and consult your own adviser before making any investments.

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Uncompensated Risks in VC | Wendy Li | Superclusters | S5E12

wendy li

“It’s not the probability; it’s the consequence. It’s not the probability when something goes wrong. It’s the consequence when it goes wrong.” – Wendy Li

Wendy Li is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Ivy Invest, a fintech investment platform bringing an endowment-style portfolio to everyday investors.

Before Ivy Invest, Wendy was Managing Director of Investments at the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, where she built the Investment Office from the ground up and managed a $4 billion portfolio. Prior to Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, Wendy was Director of Investments at UJA-Federation, investing across a broad range of asset classes. Wendy began her career in the Investment Office at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University and is a CFA charterholder.

You can find Wendy on her socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-li-cfa/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/askwendyli

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[02:29] Wendy’s family’s history with Columbia University
[07:55] The importance of understanding family history
[11:09] Why Wendy chose to work at The Met
[15:16] How did Wendy know in the interview that Lauren would be her mentor?
[19:18] Specialist vs generalist in 2006
[22:58] Pros and cons of using AI as an LP
[29:02] The 80-20 rule for how an LP thinks
[29:29] The one mistake EVERY SINGLE LP makes
[33:27] What is the Takahashi-Alexander model?
[39:38] Who do you learn from when your LP institution is so small?
[41:22] The wisdom of an open-sourced LP reading list
[45:34] What is headline risk?
[47:09] What does ‘uncompensated risk’ mean?
[50:20] Why now for ‘endowment-in-a-box’
[55:07] Wendy’s proudest dish from her mom’s recipe book
[57:09] Wendy’s last piece of advice

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“Where [using AI] is a challenge and can present a challenge to somebody’s development is in the utilization of these tools where perhaps there’s not an innate understanding of why the data is important.” – Wendy Li

“The pattern of mistakes that I certainly made and I saw the others make—and I know those listening and are earlier in their investor journey—will inevitably make-… We all make it. Even knowing this is a trap that we all fall into… even though they are all going to be aware of this trap, they’re still going to make the same mistake because we all do it, but we all have to learn this one and develop our own scar tissue on this one. It’s the exciting investment manager that other really smart LPs are invested with that is a ‘hard-to-access’ manager – that has a window in which they will take your capital. And there’s this sense of urgency. Sometimes real, sometimes forced. And there’s this sense that all these really smart investors are doing this thing. And the added layer on the endowment foundation side is oftentimes that there’s an investment committee member who is super excited about the investment because—and I’ll use a real quote that someone once said to me, ‘It would be a trophy manager to have in the portfolio’—and that is invariably a mistake that we all make in our investment careers. I would say that when I have been regretful of avoidable mistakes, it has had that pattern.” – Wendy Li

“I deeply subscribe to, ‘There’s always another train leaving the station.’” – Wendy Li

“There’s a great risk in being overconfident. There’s a great risk in assuming a normal distribution of events and returns.” – Wendy Li

“It’s not the probability; it’s the consequence. It’s not the probability when something goes wrong. It’s the consequence when it goes wrong.” – Wendy Li

“In-the-moment decision-making is always harder than you might remember post-mortem.” – Wendy Li

Follow David Zhou for more Superclusters content:
For podcast show notes: https://cupofzhou.com/superclusters
Follow David Zhou’s blog: https://cupofzhou.com
Follow Superclusters on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperclustersLP
Follow Superclusters on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@super.clusters
Follow Superclusters on Instagram: https://instagram.com/super.clusters

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.

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LP Relationship Management: The 2 Frameworks You Need to Build Trust

A while back, my friend Augustine, CEO and founder of Digify, asked me to write something for his company, Digify’s blog, about how I think about maintaining relationships between fundraising cycles when I was still an investor relations professional. As such, I wrote a mini two-part series on the frameworks and tactics I use to maintain LP relationships. Been given the liberty to cross-post on this humble blog of mine, in hopes that it helps any emerging managers or IR professionals here.

Voila, the first of two!

Author’s note [aka me]: My promise to you is that we’ll share advice you’ve likely never heard before. By the time you get to the end of this article, if you’re intimidated, then we’ll have done our job. Because that’s just how much it takes to fight in the same arena as people I’ve personally admired over the years and work to emulate and iterate daily. That said, this won’t be comprehensive, but a compilation of N of 1 practices that hopefully serve as tools in your toolkit. As such, we will be separating this piece into Part 1 and 2. The first of which is about overarching frameworks that govern how I think about managing relationships. The second of which focuses on tactical elements governed by the initial frameworks brought up.

One of the best pieces of advice I got when I started as an investor relations professional was that you never want your first conversation with an allocator to be an ask. To be fair, this piece of advice extends to all areas of life. You never want your long-anticipated catch up with a childhood friend to be about asking for a job. You never want the first interaction with an event sponsor to be one where they force you to subscribe to their product. Similarly, you never want your first meeting with an LP to be one where you ask for money.

And in my years of being both an allocator and the Head of IR (as well as in co-building a community of IR professionals), this extends across regions, across asset classes, and across archetypes of LPs.

So, this begs the question, how do you build and, more importantly, retain rapport with LPs outside of fundraising cycles? The foundation of any successful LP relationship lies in consistent engagement beyond capital asks.

To set the context and before we get into the tactics (i.e. what structured variables to track in your CRM, how often to engage LPs, AGM best practices, etc.), let’s start with two frameworks:

  1. Three hats on the ball
  2. Scientists, celebrities, and magicians

“Three hats on the ball”

This is something I learned from Rick Zullo, founding partner of Equal Ventures. The saying itself takes its origin from American football. (Yes, I get it; I’m an Americano). And I also realize that football means something completely different for everyone based outside of our stars and stripes. The sport I’m talking about is the one where big muscular dudes run at each other at full force, fighting over a ball shaped like an olive pit. And in this sport, the one thing you learn is that the play isn’t dead unless you have at least three people over the person running the ball. One isn’t enough. Two leaves things to chance. Three is the gamechanger.

The same is true when building relationships with LPs. You should always know at least three people at the institutions that are backing you. You never know when your primary champion will retire, switch roles, go on maternity leave, leave on sabbatical, or get stung by a bee and go into anaphylactic shock. Yes, all the above have happened to people I know. Plus, having more people rooting for you is always good.

Institutions often have high employee turnover rates. CIOs and Heads of Investment cycle through every 7-8 years, if not less. And even if the headcount doesn’t change, LPs, by definition, are generalists. They need to play in multiple asset classes. And venture is the smallest of the small asset classes. It often gets the least attention.

So, having multiple champions root for you and remind each other of something forgotten outside of the deal room helps immensely. Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. Remind people why they love you. And remind as many as possible, as often as possible. This multi-touch approach is essential for nurturing a robust LP relationship strategy.

Scientists, celebrities, and magicians

My buddy Ian Park told me this when I first became an IR professional. “In IR, there are product specialists and there are relationship managers. Figure out which you’re better at and lean into it.” Since then, he’s luckily also put it into writing. In essence, as an IR professional, you’re either really good at building and maintaining relationships or can teach people about the firm, the craft, the thesis, the portfolio, and the decisions behind them.

To caveat ‘relationship managers,’ I believe there are two kinds: sales and customer success. Sales is really capital formation. How do you build (as opposed to maintain) relationships? How do you win strangers over? This is a topic for another day. For now, we’ll focus on ‘customer success’ later in this piece.

There’s also this equation that I hear a number of Heads of IR and Chief Development Officers use.

track record X differentiation / complexity

I don’t know the origin, but I first heard it from my friends at General Catalyst, so I’ll give them the kudos here.

Everyone at the firm should play a key role influencing at least one of these variables. The operations and portfolio support team should focus on differentiation. The investment partners focus on the track record. Us IR folks focus on complexity. And yes, everyone does help everyone else with their variables as well.

That said, to transpose Ian’s framework to this function, the relationship managers primarily focus on reducing the size of the denominator. Help LPs understand what could be complex about your firm through regular catchups—these touchpoints are crucial for maintaining a strong LP relationship:

  • Why are you increasing the fund size?
  • Why are you diversifying the thesis?
  • How do you address key person risk?
  • Why are you expanding to new asset classes?
  • Are you on an American or European waterfall distribution structure?
  • Why are you missing an independent management company?
  • Who will be the GP if the current one gets hit by a bus?

The product specialists split time between the numerator and the denominator. They spend intimate time in the partnership meetings, and might potentially be involved in the investment committee. Oftentimes, I see product specialists either actively building their own angel track record and/or working their way to become full-time investment partners.

One of my favorite laws of magic by one of my favorite authors, Brandon Sanderson, is his first law: “An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.”

In turn, an IR professional’s ability to get an LP to re-up is directly proportional to how well the LP understands said magic at the firm.

My friend and former Broadway playwright, Michael Roderick, once said, the modern professional specializes in three ways:

  1. The scientist is wired for process. The subject-matter expert. They thrive on the details, the small nuances most others would overlook. They will discover things that revolutionize how the industry works. The passionately curious.
  2. The celebrity. They thrive on building and maintaining relationships. And their superpower is that they can make others feel like celebrities.
  3. The magician thrives on novelty. Looking at old things in new ways – new perspectives. The translator. They’re great at making things click. Turning arcane, esoteric knowledge into something your grandma gets.

The product specialists are the scientists. The relationship managers are the celebrities. But every IR professional, especially as you grow, needs to be a magician.

Going back to the fact that most LPs are generalists, and that most venture firms look extremely similar to each other, you need to be able to describe the magic and your firm’s ‘rules’ for said magic to your grandma.

For the next half, I’ll share some individual tactics I’ve worked into my rotation. Most are not original in nature, but borrowed, inspired, and co-created with fellow IR professionals.

This post was first shared on Digify’s blog, which you can find here.

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!

Any views expressed on this blog are mine and mine alone. They are not a representation of values held by On Deck, DECODE, or any other entity I am or have been associated with. They are for informational and entertainment purposes only. None of this is legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Please do your own diligence before investing in startups and consult your own adviser before making any investments.

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The Inside Peek Into How Family Offices Gather | Samira Salman | Superclusters | S5E11

samira salman

“The revenue and economic models for groups are misaligned with how human nature functions.” – Samira Salman

Samira Salman is a generational force—a rare blend of financier, strategist, and connector—revered for her ability to move capital, catalyze ventures, and cultivate the kinds of high-trust relationships that shape industries and define legacies. With over $5.5 billion in closed transactions spanning multiple asset classes, she is not merely a dealmaker—she is a trusted consigliere to some of the world’s most sophisticated families, investors, and visionaries.

Samira is the Founder & CEO of Salman Solutions, a bespoke advisory firm, and the visionary behind Collaboration Circle, an invitation-only global ecosystem recognized by Fortune Magazine as the premier “by families, for families” platform—curating aligned capital, deal flow, and meaningful connection across generations of wealth. She also serves as Chief Operating Officer of a private single-family office, overseeing a portfolio that blends venture capital, direct investments, and multi-generational governance.

Educated as a mergers and acquisitions tax attorney, Samira’s early career at Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, KPMG, and Shell Oil laid the foundation for her structural brilliance and financial fluency. She holds an LL.M. in Taxation, a JD, and a BS in International Trade and Finance—with a minor in Economics. Her legal acumen, combined with a deep intuition for human behavior, gives her a unique edge in structuring elegant, effective solutions that drive growth, mitigate risk, and unlock hidden value.

Samira’s proprietary methodology for business growth and ecosystem development has positioned her as one of the most connected and trusted figures in private finance. Her work spans advisory mandates, capital formation, co-investment syndication, family office strategy, and the orchestration of transformational events for UHNW families and industry trailblazers. She is the rare operator who bridges worlds—money and meaning, structure and soul, intellect and instinct.

Her multicultural upbringing and global exposure across dozens of countries have imbued her with a refined sensibility, cultural fluency, and a fierce commitment to authenticity. Samira doesn’t just build businesses—she builds trust-based systems that endure. Her work is rooted in the principle that Relationships Under Management (RUM) are the new AUM—and she is the embodiment of that thesis.

A passionate advocate for women’s economic empowerment, arts and culture, and global impact, Samira has served as an Honorary Advisor to the United Nations for Social Impact Projects and the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development. She has held board roles with numerous arts, education, healthcare, and professional institutions including the Houston Ballet, Center for Contemporary Craft, and Fresh Arts.

You can find Samira on her socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samirasalman/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/samira_salman

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[02:27] How did Samira find herself at TASIS?
[04:17] How did TASIS feel when she first arrived?
[07:27] From tax lawyer to family offices
[09:55] How did Samira decide to quit being a lawyer?
[17:12] Why did Samira want to be a tax lawyer?
[19:44] Journaling
[22:39] The blessing of a lawyer brain
[25:19] The Oprah episode that changed it all
[29:45] How did Salman Solutions start?
[33:28] Samira’s first interaction with family offices
[36:43] Show and tell with Samira’s journals and pens
[41:27] What did Samira mean that most family offices fall short of raising their own capital?
[42:54] What is the common family office hero arc into VC?
[44:05] Family office trends that Samira’s seen
[47:17] The starting point for families interested in VC
[50:13] Advice to a friend who wants to invest in VC
[53:31] Book, podcast and conference recommendations
[55:42] How does one qualify for Collaboration Circle?
[56:21] Content recommendations, continued
[59:57] How Collaboration Circle started
[1:06:59] The 3 pieces of Collaboration Circle
[1:09:49] Community economic models and human nature misalignment
[1:12:43] How to create safe environments
[1:18:02] The Dior bag tradition
[1:21:20] Reminders that we’re in the good old days

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“The very first thing everybody has to do is give themselves permission to lean into what they are interested in and what does it for them and what they understand and what they have an affinity for, regardless of what everybody else says you should be doing.” – Samira Salman

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

“The revenue and economic models for groups are misaligned with how human nature functions.” – Samira Salman

“Numbers and volume are not what programs humans to feel safe and to be authentic and to create. In order for us to do our best work and be our most thoughtful, our most creative, we have to be fully dropped down into our bodies and safe in our nervous systems. And some of the environments our industry has curated are literally the exact opposite of that.” – Samira Salman

Follow David Zhou for more Superclusters content:
For podcast show notes: https://cupofzhou.com/superclusters
Follow David Zhou’s blog: https://cupofzhou.com
Follow Superclusters on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperclustersLP
Follow Superclusters on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@super.clusters
Follow Superclusters on Instagram: https://instagram.com/super.clusters

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.

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