Blog
Today’s guest is Ullas Naik, Founder and General Partner @Streamlined Ventures. His notable investments include; Addepar, DoorDash, Rappi, and FLYR, for example. Ullas has been an investor for over 23 years with 400 companies worth of investment experience. He has steadily weathered the ups and downs of markets, and more importantly, been a steady, guiding hand to portfolio founders.
There are no short-cuts for emerging fund managers to solidify their position in the venture ecosystem— managers must:
Build relationships at scale.
Source investment opportunities.
Support the founder ecosystem.
Raise capital from LPs.
Emerging fund managers are prone to burn-out and must be thoughtful about their well-being. In this post, we share 3 things emerging managers can do to rejuvenate and recover without investing significant amounts of their time.
What happens when all you do is ask from a relationship without giving anything back? The other party won't feel there is any value in continuing to interact with you.
What happens if all someone does in a relationship is 'give' to you without taking anything you offer them? You won't feel you are contributing to the relationship, you won't feel valued for what you bring to the relationship, and the interaction will be discontinued.
Every emerging fund manager must produce content assets to help streamline and scale their fundraising efforts. The most effective outreach is one that is consistent, systematic, and repeatable. In this post, I share the attributes you need to produce: 1) A pitch-deck, and 2) An introductory snippet. The process of creating these content assets will also force you to clarify key aspects of your fund to a higher degree—the process is just as beneficial as the outcome!
When venturing out to raise your first fund, you must have realistic expectations for how long it will take to raise your first fund, and more importantly, the outreach efforts required to do so. Many LPs, without saying explicitly, will want to commence conversations 12 months (at minimum) before writing a check into your fund. And 12 months is on the short side of the time scale.
Most LPs will want to get to know you over time before committing capital, there are a few 'watch-its' when engaging with LPs. In the early days, your goal for LP meetings is to secure the next meeting to continue building the relationship. Therefore, you do not want unnecessarily and unintentionally trigger alarm bells, which will close the door on the relationship. In this post, we share six things LPs don't want to see in emerging fund managers— we also share what they would prefer to see instead.
