Venture

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Distinct By Nature: Crafting Your Differentiated Fund Thesis

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Distinct By Nature: Crafting Your Differentiated Fund Thesis

The venture space is saturated with emerging funds and venture brands— this trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. However, as a result, it has become challenging for LPs to differentiate one venture fund from another. Furthermore, it is increasingly challenging for founders to find and partner with smaller, value-add funds, especially if so many other smaller funds sound like they are promising and saying the same thing.

Therefore, without clear differentiation, it will be an uphill battle for first-time emerging fund managers GPs to:

  • Secure meetings with LPs who can provide the capital for your deployment.

  • Attract top founders and their companies to invest in and grow.

Why Start Your First Early-Stage Venture Fund?

Why Start Your First Early-Stage Venture Fund?

If you are a first-time emerging fund manager, starting and raising a fund requires a lot of effort— you have your work cut out for you.

Just like a startup founder, emerging fund managers are prone to burn-out and health challenges — working long hours, traveling for extended extended periods, etc.

Therefore, it is just as essential to ensure you are clear about why you want to build a fund and what specifically about it inspires you. Your motivation must be intrinsic.

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Values Fulfillment: A Simple Way to Determine Core Values, Grow Self-Awareness, and Connect with Others Effectively

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Values Fulfillment: A Simple Way to Determine Core Values, Grow Self-Awareness, and Connect with Others Effectively

One way to grow your self-awareness is to clarify and articulate your core values. Understanding your— and others'— core values can lead to several benefits:

  • Clearer and more confident decision-making. 

  • Inspired action-taking. 

  • Ease of identifying the right stakeholders you want to partner with— investors, employers, advisors.

  • Better trust and alignment with people in your life— colleagues, reports, partners, family, and friends.

  • Greater personal satisfaction and fulfillment. 

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How to Write a Great Email Request for Introduction: Investment, Hiring, Sales, and Anything Else.

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How to Write a Great Email Request for Introduction: Investment, Hiring, Sales, and Anything Else.

A friend of a friend happens to be looking to hire someone like you. 

Your ex-boss decides to be an angel investor just as you choose to found a startup. 

A relative happens to work for the key decision-maker at the very company you want to secure an enterprise contract with. 

You successfully raise a round of funding, and an employee happens to know a team of talented, tight-knit engineers looking for a new company to work for— 

— These serendipitous events can turn into great opportunities for everyone involved. However, unless someone activates their relationships and networks with clear intent, a lot of these brilliant opportunities can go by unrealized.

The opportunity: when you combine the right approach with modern-day technology, you can effectively activate your networks to reach people who would otherwise remain strangers.

Emerging Manager ‘Must-Dos’: The Path to Your First Fund

Emerging Manager ‘Must-Dos’: The Path to Your First Fund

Capital is a great amplifier. When great ideas meet the right people, the proper application of capital helps startups commercialize incredible products and services. The great news: there is an increasing number of talented, mission-driven emerging managers entering the venture space. These emerging managers possess the following:   

  1. The authentic desire to enrich the startup ecosystem by building lasting relationships, and effectively deploying capital to support founders and their teams. 

  2. Empathy, which enables them to resonate with founders and their teams. 

  3. First-hand operational experience, as a founder or an executive. 

  4. Strong recognition of the importance of helping investors (Limited Partners, LPs) realize returns on their investment. 

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The Essentials of Early-Stage Startup Fundraising: How to Quickly Find and Secure the Right Investors

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The Essentials of Early-Stage Startup Fundraising: How to Quickly Find and Secure the Right Investors

How can you find the right investors for your company— the trustworthy ones that are values-aligned? How can you quickly fundraise so you can get back to building your company? In this post, I share the process and psychology behind fundraising to help you:

  • Find the right investors (and fast).

  • Secure the funds your company needs.

  • Get back to building your company. 

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The Stewardship of Capital: Early-Stage Investing, Founder Centricity, Strengthening Trust, and Supporting Founders

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The Stewardship of Capital: Early-Stage Investing, Founder Centricity, Strengthening Trust, and Supporting Founders

As investors, advisors, and mentors who genuinely want to enrich the entrepreneurial ecosystem, our ongoing challenge is to strategically steward capital and people in a way that the resulting venture (business, fund, organization) is:

  • Aligned with people’s best interests and talents.

  • Supported by the right people, including investors, employees, teams and other key stakeholders.

  • Grown at the right pace and at the right time.

  • Structured with the best chance to succeed and scale.

In this post, I share some of my perspectives and thoughts. I also look forward to hearing your thoughts and questions and learning from your experiences too.