LP Allocations = Brand of the Fund Manager
And the brand of the fund manager is increasingly important to be the fund
This is an interesting article from Nikhil about the trajectory from being an angel, to a super angel, and then graduating to a solo capitalist. If you treat coinvesting GPs, founders, and LPs like family, build trust, & respect them, they’ll want to keep working with you for multiple fund cycles. An anonymous LP friend said that “if our GPs take care of us, we’ll be married to our GPs”. That is powerful and helps to back the statement that when when everyone says VC is a relationship business, it truly is. If you worked at Lightspeed and now are at Bessemer, your portfolio companies & coinvesting VCs loved working with YOU as much or as more than the firm you were previously at. This is powerful and truly enlightens what Nikhil said and below is the criteria for being a solo Capitalist which has an interesting iteration to the traditional venture fund structure
This has a very close similarity to other industries like financial planning, law, & even dentistry. It’s quite common to mention that you work with a service provider that you trust as the Person first before mentioning the firm. Ex: “Yes, I have really enjoyed my experince with <insert name> who really helped me with _____ and what’s great about them is ______ “. “You should speak to them! I’ll make an intro” They are currently at <insert firm> . Solo Capitalists =could eventually compete with VC firms due to the ability to make quick decisions, be flexible on terms, or another twist to this is if an employee is able to do an SPV into a company that they work at .