As a Fund Manager looking to raise capital from institutional investors — a pitch deck is a necessity. Pitch decks serve as a quick overview of your fund, your strengths, your investment thesis, and your plan for the fundraise. This allows you to communicate clearly and succinctly with potential investors, while also forcing you to streamline your internal messaging…

Managing your investor relationships is a critical part of running a business. After completing your fundraise, begin regular communications with investors to build a long-term relationship with those who believed and invested in you. This article describes the reasons to send investor updates, their components, and an example investor update…

My new book, The Venture Fund Blueprint, was officially released! You can order it on Amazon here. We took stock of the important questions hundreds had asked us over the years and distilled them into step-by-step guides. We filled the book's pages with answers to building pitch decks, running operations, and fundraising. We are humbled and grateful for the overwhelming support…

If your organization has a compelling product or service that you’re looking to sell, leaping into a new market can be exciting. However, without proper assessment of the new situation, it could end in disaster. First, you’ll need to confirm that your offering provides special value so that you can determine whether your customers will be willing and able to pay…

All organizations face competitors. To ensure viability in a new market, your organization will want to conduct a full assessment of competitors to uncover either (a) market gaps you can exploit to create a valuable niche or (b) opportunities to innovate or defend your advantage to outperform contenders. Here is a 7-step guide of how to find, assess, and take action with regards to your competition…

To Institutional Investors, the term “Emerging Manager” indicates a venture capital investor with less than ten years of investing experience, fewer than four funds, and under $1bb in assets under management (AUM). However, the terms “Emerging Manager” and “EMVC” are often used in market today to denote fund managers from overlooked backgrounds, funds under $250mm in size, and fund managers with varied investing expertise…

Once your organization has established the unique value to provide to the right customers, you need to make sure you can keep them. A durable, competitive advantage will put your organization in a favorable position above other contenders battling for your customers, so you can succeed over the long term. Here are some strong and defensible competitive advantages…