Send us Fan Mail

You can have a great fund and still lose the room if you misunderstand what the investor is actually weighing. We start with a deceptively simple question: when you pitch an LP, what are you competing against? The instinct is “other funds,” but the real competitive set is every other use of that LP’s private markets allocation and every constraint inside their portfolio construction plan.

We dig into how sophisticated limited partners approach alternative investments: sizing alternatives within a broader portfolio, breaking that allocation across strategies and vintages, and managing concentration risk across managers. By the time they take your meeting, they are rarely starting from scratch. That’s why a polished pitch deck cannot compensate for poor discovery. If you don’t know what the LP already owns and what they are trying to achieve this cycle, you can’t credibly show fit.

From there, we talk about the shift that changes everything: fundraising feels less like selling and more like matching when you listen well enough to decide whether you belong in their portfolio right now. Done well, even a “no” can strengthen the relationship and lead to a future yes, because the conversation feels honest. We close with the confidence piece: building enough pipeline and top of funnel visibility so no single investor meeting feels make or break.

If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a fund manager, and leave a review. What’s the one question you wish more managers would ask LPs early in the process?