the first ten calls of a fund raise

on thursday i debriefed a venture investor who'd been on the show.

he said the episode helped him put his thinking on robotics into words. things he'd believed for a while but never said out loud in one place. and he was being careful about when he'd repost it, because he wanted the timing to line up with his fund ii raise.

that's a smart investor. he's treating his own content like part of the raise, not a side project.

then he walked me through how he's raising, and it was the cleanest plan i've heard from an emerging manager in a while.

fund i had five lps. fund ii is aiming for about ten. all large checks, from corporations or senior executives. no long tail of small tickets.

and the order matters. first he goes back to the people who already said yes. re-up the existing lps. then, and only then, a selective round of outbound to fill the rest.

everyone thinks a raise is a hunt for new money. new names, new meetings, a big list, a long roadshow. for a second fund that's backwards. the most valuable call you can make is to someone who already trusted you once and has watched what you did with it.

a returning lp isn't a cold prospect. they've seen the reporting. they know how you think. they've had time to see if you do what you said. that's worth more than fifty first meetings.

it's like a restaurant opening a second location. you don't start by flyering a new neighbourhood. you tell your regulars first. they're the ones who'll show up opening night and bring someone with them.

then i did something you might not expect from someone who runs outbound for a living. i told him it wasn't a fit.

my read on the call was simple. a small, relationship driven raise, ten checks, most of them from people he already knows... that doesn't need an outbound engine. it needs him on the phone with the right ten people. selling him a system for something he can do with a short list would have been a waste of his money and my credibility.

he didn't take offence. he asked for a one pager instead, so he could refer portfolio companies to us.

that's a better outcome than a forced sale. telling someone the truth about fit is how you get the referral.

here's what i'd take from it if you're a founder, not a fund manager.

your next round starts with the people already on your cap table. before you build a list of new investors, call the ones who wrote the first checks. tell them what happened. tell them what's next. ask who else should hear it. most founders skip this because it feels like asking twice. it isn't. it's reporting back, and good investors expect it.

and if you're an emerging manager, raise in the same order he does. regulars first. then selective outbound. then, if you've done it right, the show and the content you put out over the last two years start doing some of the work for you.

long term, every fund and every company is built on the people who said yes early. treat them like an asset and they become the anchor of the next raise. ignore them and you're starting cold every time.

if you want to map out who those first calls should be, that's part of what we do in fundraising strategy.

so before you add one new name to your investor list... when did you last call the people who already said yes?