<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"><channel><title>Beezer Clarkson on Feld Thoughts</title><link>https://feld.com/tags/beezer-clarkson/</link><description>Recent content in Beezer Clarkson on Feld Thoughts</description><image><title>Feld Thoughts</title><url>https://feld.com/og-default.png</url><link>https://feld.com/og-default.png</link></image><generator>Hugo -- 0.163.0</generator><language>en-us</language><lastBuildDate>Tue, 05 Jun 2018 08:39:20 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://feld.com/tags/beezer-clarkson/index.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title>GP/LP Fit</title><link>https://feld.com/archives/2018/06/gp-lp-fit/</link><pubDate>Tue, 05 Jun 2018 08:39:20 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://feld.com/archives/2018/06/gp-lp-fit/</guid><description>The idea of product/market fit has been around for a long time. And, while founder/market fit is a newer concept, it turns out to be just as important. Recently, Beezer</description><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="600" align="center" style="max-width:600px;width:100%;margin:0 auto;"><tr><td><div style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:24px;"><a href="https://feld.com" style="display:inline-block;"><img src="https://feld.com/images/email-header.png" alt="Feld Thoughts" width="600" style="max-width:100%;display:block;border:0;" /></a></div><p>The idea of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070701074943/http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the-pmarca-gu-2.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">product/market fit</a> has been around for a long time. And, while founder/market fit is a newer concept, it turns out to be just as important.</p>
<p>Recently, Beezer Clarkson at Saphirre Ventures wrote a post titled <a href="https://medium.com/sapphire-ventures-perspectives/raising-a-fund-9-questions-that-help-get-you-to-gp-lp-fit-2c51ce2f3bb1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Raising A Fund? 9 Questions That Help Get You To GP/LP Fit</a>. If you are a GP raising a fund, you should go read this post right now. In it, Beezer goes through, in depth, the top questions she recommends you ask an LP to determine GP/LP fit.</p>
<ol>
<li>What are you currently investing in?</li>
<li>Why venture and how long have you been investing in it?</li>
<li>How much capital do you have under management, and how much of that is invested in venture?</li>
<li>How many venture managers are you currently allocating to? Will you be allocating to any new managers this year?</li>
<li>What strategies and geographies are you actively investing in?</li>
<li>What is your preferred check size and fund size?</li>
<li>What has been your history of supporting fund managers in follow-on funds? When you have not followed on in a fund, why not?</li>
<li>Who is on the investment committee and what is your process for allocation approvals?</li>
<li>Outside of great returns, what are your expectations of GPs post investment?</li>
</ol>
<p>Seriously, <a href="https://medium.com/sapphire-ventures-perspectives/raising-a-fund-9-questions-that-help-get-you-to-gp-lp-fit-2c51ce2f3bb1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">go read Beezer’s post</a>.</p>
<p>There’s an interesting graph in the post, which shows that a typical LP is going to add less than five new managers a year to their portfolio (and, on average, only two or three.) While an LP takes a lot of meetings, they don’t do a lot of investments.</p>
<p>GPs – does that sound familiar?</p>
</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Content From LPs</title><link>https://feld.com/archives/2016/07/content-from-lps/</link><pubDate>Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:19:27 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://feld.com/archives/2016/07/content-from-lps/</guid><description>My partner Lindel Eakman wrote a post a few days ago about his transition from Austin to Boulder and a really helpful one about how to work with him titled A Human</description><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="600" align="center" style="max-width:600px;width:100%;margin:0 auto;"><tr><td><div style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:24px;"><a href="https://feld.com" style="display:inline-block;"><img src="https://feld.com/images/email-header.png" alt="Feld Thoughts" width="600" style="max-width:100%;display:block;border:0;" /></a></div><p>My partner Lindel Eakman wrote a post a few days ago about his <a href="https://www.ldeakman.com/archives/2016/06/transition.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">transition from Austin to Boulder</a> and a really helpful one about how to work with him titled <em><a href="https://www.ldeakman.com/archives/2016/06/human-user-interface-lots-quirks.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A Human User Interface….with lots of quirks</a>.</em> This prompted me to poke around for other content from the limited partner (LP) side of the LP/VC/entrepreneurship universe.</p>
<p>I think the first LP blogger was <a href="https://twitter.com/cdouvos" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Chris Douvos</a> who periodically puts up an instant classic post at <a href="https://superlp.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Super LP</a>. I fondly remember a meeting with Chris in NY at the end of the day when we were raising our first Foundry Group fund. I was tired and dragging a little from the fundraising, but Chris’ energy and enthusiasm around VC picked me back up in advance of dinner. He didn’t invest in our fund, but he made a strong impression on me.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.openlp.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">OpenLP</a> is a new site moderated by the gang at <a href="https://sapphireventures.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sapphire Ventures</a> that seems to be a collection of all the LP stuff floating around the web. They are also promoting the idea of an <a href="https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&amp;vertical=default&amp;q=%23openlp&amp;src=typd&amp;lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">#openlp twitter hashtag</a>. It does appear that they need to work on their SEO so they don’t get confused with <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=open&#43;lp&amp;oq=open&#43;lp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Free Open Source Church Worship Presentation Software</em></a></p>
<p>The team at Notation Capital is <a href="https://notationcapital.com/origins-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">doing a really good podcast with interviews with LPs</a>. Sapphire Ventures is again in the mix as a sponsor and – no surprise – episode 3 is with Chris Douvos.</p>
<p>My current favorite podcast, Harry Stebbings 20 Minute VC, is starting to have some LPs on it, including the omnipresent <a href="https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/chrisdouvos/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Chris Douvos</a> and <a href="https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/beezerclarkson/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sapphire Ventures Beezer Clarkson</a>. I sense a pattern.</p>
<p>As I continued poking around, I found a few LP firms hosting blogs on their websites. I never find this as compelling as when an individual LP has their own blog, but it’s better than nothing. A few blogs I found include <a href="https://www.ttcp.com/#resources" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Top Tier Capital Partners</a>, <a href="https://www.weathergagecapital.com/blog/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Weathergate</a>, and <a href="https://medium.com/sapphire-ventures-perspectives/tagged/lp-insights" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sapphire Ventures</a> (on Medium).</p>
<p>I wish more LPs would blog to help VCs and entrepreneurs understand them better. If you know of any, please leave them in the comments.</p>
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