On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:
- Todd Klein
- Larsen Jensen
- Alex Edelson
We asked guests to share the best question they’ve ever been asked by an allocator.
The hosts of The Full Ratchet are Nick Moran and Nate Pierotti of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in founders outside of the Bay Area.
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Transcribed with AI:
0:18
Welcome back to TFR on today’s special segment, we ask guests to share the best question they’ve ever been asked by an allocator. Here’s a segment called Best LP question.
0:36
On today’s special segment, we have Todd Klein of revolution growth. Todd, what’s the best question that an LP has asked you? You
0:43
know, the most interesting question that an LP asked me recently was like, Why do you want to do this? What is it about this job that is exciting to you? And ironically, given the entire length of my career, no one had ever asked me that before. Like they always ask you, how you got into it. They ask you, you know, what your great successes were, and so forth. But this was the first time anyone ever said, like, why are you doing this? You know, there are other things that people could do. And as you know, I mean, there’s a lot of struggle that comes every one of these companies. You know, even the successful ones go through hard times, right? Yeah, and so that means you’re there with them the whole the whole way. So that was an interesting question. And you know, I’ve always, as we talked about earlier, wanted to be associated and work in the entrepreneur community, but I didn’t have, like, a perfectly snappy answer, right? So anyway, I thought that was interesting.
1:47
On today’s special segment, we have Larson Jensen of harpoon ventures. Larson, what is the best question an LP has asked you? I
1:54
would say it’s less of a question, but the amount of time they’ve spent with me, I’ve been surprised with how few LPS take the same amount of time that we take in terms of getting to know a founder, with getting to know me, spending time in person with us, understanding our thought process, showing up in that spirit of your first question, showing up well informed the research they’ve done to sort of put themselves on third base, or our relationship on third base, and getting to know us over a period of months before making a decision. That takes a lot of work. And I understand that they’re busy. So are we. I think it’s less of a specific question and more of a behaviour trait. There’s some that do it better than others, and some are just world class with that. That’s why they’re world class limited partners. And so a recommendation I would have to any limited partner that’s newer into the world of venture is you just cannot shortcut that trust building. I encourage people to ask me all of our successes and, more importantly, our failures, and thereafter, go talk to the people that we failed with, the people we’ve won with, and spend the time to do that, and ultimately, I think that if you spend that time, you’ll come to a better decision, the same way that we do when we come to a better decision when we’re trying to work with an early stage founder.
3:16
On today’s special segment, we have Alex Edelson of Slipstream, Alex, what is the best question an LP has
3:22
asked you? Oh, man, one hard one was when we were getting started in 21 you know, it felt like everything in venture was going great, like everything’s up and to the right. You got to do venture every show. Everyone should have one a venture allocation slipstream is like a no brainer. But there were some folks then saying, like, Is this really the right time? Like, is what’s going on in venture healthy right now? And like, that was a great question, and it pushed on me to think about, like, can we build a strategy that is concentrated enough to outperform, but like diversified adequately to perform across all market conditions? Because the reality was in 21 no, it probably wasn’t the best time. And we talked about like, why it wasn’t the best time, but like why you can still do well, and how difficult it is time to Marcus. You can’t really do that, but to create a strategy such that there is no bad time for it, but there might be some times that are like, better than others, but acknowledging like, that was a tough time. That probably wasn’t the best time for it. That was tricky.
4:24
I’m glad somebody asked you that, because I felt like the majority was just like, how do we get more money? And now I had probably five LPS call me up. When are you going to do a crypto fund? I’ve got some cap. I’m like, what? That’s not what I do at all. Yeah, people were just it was a frenzy. Well, kudos to you, because
4:43
like in times like that, it’s easy to say Yes, right? And it’s hard to stay focused and stay narrow and to stay disciplined around what’s so unique about you, what you’re capable of doing. Because, yeah, the short term greedy thing is like, Yeah, let’s just grow. Let’s take it all. Let’s have multiple process. Bucks, and then it’s like, but the long term pretty move may be to be really patient and very careful at times like that.
5:06
You know, in an industry like ours, like venture capital, there’s so many bright, shiny objects and like, part of my diligence with founders is, like, how focused and disciplined is this person, or are they very distractible, because lots of distractions, you know, when you build something valuable and when you’re an interesting person, there’s a million things pulling at your time and your focus.
5:26
No, I totally agree, and it’s important to me too. I think about that both as an LP and as a GP.
5:37
That will conclude this instalment of investor stories, if you’re enjoying the programme and would like to see it continue, take a moment and leave a five star review in iTunes. Okay, that will wrap things up for today until next time over. Prepare, choose carefully and invest confidently. Thanks for joining me.
