Aspiring Fund Managers Playbook

Building a Conscious VC Fund

We recently successfully launched a fellowship for aspiring women fund managers from South and Southeast Asia. We got an overwhelming response of around 100 women applying for the first cohort, and we are pleased to announce the first cohort of 32 fellows.

MEET THE FELLOWS 2022

Huge thanks to the @Network Capital Team for coordinating all of this. We have done four sessions as of now with the following:

• Amra Naidoo, Accelerating Asia (GP)

• Soumya Rajan, Waterfield Advisors (LP/Fund of Funds)

• Maya Chandrasekaran, Green Artha (GP)

• Namita Dalmia, Enzia Ventures (GP)

In my pursuit to be an emerging manager myself, I wrote quite a several pieces in the last two years about being an emerging manager - what to look for, best practices, and curated resources like:

• Fund Model Canvas - There are nine pieces to build a solid case for an impact venture fund, which include a process - fund & portfolio level, investment thesis, fund structure, fund economics, portfolio construction, team, profile- entrepreneurs and LPs, unfair advantage, and purpose & story.  

  

• Startup Support Ecosystems

• 5 reasons to back First-Time Fund Managers

• 10 resources for aspiring fund managers

• The promise of Venture Studio

• Contrarian Investor - value investing

Aligned to my vision of democratizing venture capital, I am sharing a curated learning resource pool that any emerging/aspiring manager can use to self-educate themselves.

• Portfolio Construction

  • What is your Portfolio Construction? [First Followers]

  • Why Ownership Matters in Venture Investing with FirstMark's Amish Jani 

  • Why Portfolio Construction Is Inefficient, Why The Only Thing That Matters In Venture Is Pricing & The Future of Venture 

  • "Portfolio Construction" w/ Beezer Clarkson, Alda Leu Dennis and Trae Vassallo 

  • The Generalist vs the Specialist VC with Nick Moran 

  • Non-Unicorn Investing (Jerry Neumann) 

  • VC Portfolio Strategy (Rob Go)

  • Portfolio Construction, Optimising SPVs, Opportunity Investing "Between Rounds"

  • How Hard Is It to Generate a 10X Return on an Investment?

• Limited Partners Perspectives

  • Knowing Limited Partners [First Followers]

  • Hard Questions by LPs to GPs [First Followers]

  • Inside The Mind Of A Leading LP: How Lps Evaluate New Fund Managers

  • The Framework LPs use to assess emerging managers, what concerns and excite LPs in Potential opportunities & the current state of seed today with Hunter Somerville, Partner @Greenspring Associates.

  • LP Value Creation, Why DPI is King, and Secondaries as a Means of Exit (Sarah Anderson)

  • Chaos Capital, the new Micro VC Movement and LPs Chasing Hype (Chris Douvos)

  • The Limited Partner, Part 1 (Lindel Eakman)

  • The Limited Partner, Part 1 (Lindel Eakman)  

  • The Limited Partner, Part 2 (Lindel Eakman) 

  • Lindel Eakman, Foundry Group Next

  • LP Value Creation, Why DPI is King, and Secondaries as a Means of Exit (Sarah Anderson) 

  • Elizabeth Beezer Clarkson, Sapphire Ventures 

  • The LP Perspective And The OpenLP Reboot With Beezer Clarkson 

  • Michael Kim, Cendana Capital

  • Lessons from 300+ Venture Capital Fund Pitches

  • 20VC: Inside The Mind of A Leading LP: How LPs Evaluate New Fund Managers on Everything from First Meeting to Portfolio Construction To Fees and Carry with Lisa Edgar, Managing Director @ Top Tier Capital Partners

  • Lo Toney, Plexo Capital: "Lo Toney is the founding managing partner of Plexo Capital, a new $42.5 million fund incubated inside of GV focused on making investments in seed-stage VC firms led by women or people of color." It is an exciting fund

  • GP and LP Alignment, Challenges for Emerging Fund Managers, and How the Explosion in Seed Fund Volume Plays Out (Jaclyn Hester)

• Fund Economics

  • VC Fund Economics [First Followers]

  • How To Think Through Portfolio Construction and The Business Model of VC

  • How Hard Is It to Generate a 10X Return on an Investment?

  • What it takes to start your own venture capital fund?

  • How VCs get measured? 

  • How is the VC Asset Class Doing?

  • Economic Theory in Venture Capital, Part 2 (Mark Suster)  

  • Economic Theory in Venture Capital, Part 1 (Mark Suster)

  • How to set a good fund target as an emerging venture fund manager?

  • Emerging Manager Q&A mailbag

• How to fundraise for the first fund?

  • Raising Fund I? [First Followers]

  • What to look for in LPs? 

  • The Limited Partner Landscape – With Jeff Weinstein of FJ Labs

  • What it take to start your own venture fund? 

  • Micro VC Allocation Models

  • Five Questions for Vetting an Investment in a New or Emerging VC Fund 

  • What you need to know before raising a Micro-VC fund today? 

  • Crisis Coverage w/ Semil Shah - VC Fund Management in a Pandemic World

  • How to set a good fund target as an emerging venture fund manager?

  • Emerging Manager Q&A mailbag

  • Emerging Manager 'Must-Dos': The Path to Your First Fund

  • VC Fundraising with David Cohen | Moving LPs to a Yes 

  • Emerging Manager 'Must-Dos': The Path to Your First Fund

• Portfolio Support / Portfolio Management

  • VC Portfolio Support Strategy [First Followers]

  • VC Platform Strategy

  • Research/ White Paper on Portfolio Strategy

  • Beyond capital: VC firms use their Platform strategy as an additional differentiator in a market that has become over-competitive.

• Branding

  • The Importance of Storytelling, VC EQ, and the LP-GP Dating Game, Part 1 (James R. ‘Trey’ Hart III)  

  • The Importance of Storytelling, VC EQ, and the LP-GP Dating Game, Part 2 (James R. ‘Trey’ Hart III)  

  • Building an Investor Brand, Part 2 (Jay Acunzo & John Gannon)  

  • Building an Investor Brand, Part 1 (Jay Acunzo & John Gannon)

• Terms and LPs Due Diligence on GPs

  • Venture Fund Terms 101 

  • Venture Fund Terms 201

  • Preparing for LP Due Diligence

  • How LPs Conduct Due Diligence on Venture Capital Firms

  • Due Diligence the VCs: Part One, The Limited Partner Perspective

  • LP responsible investment DDQ and how to use it

  • Institutional limited partners association DDQ

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"first followers" is founded by Sagar Tandon. You can reach out to me at sagar@firstfollowers.co.

The "first followers" is a monthly newsletter covering impact investing, venture capital, innovative financing instruments, and venture building.