- LPs - need to be able to explain every deal to LPs, either casually or as heavy diligence. Crazy ideas are fine, as long as there is a solid story behind it.
- Generate deal flow - won’t do anything that could potentially hurt that.
- Win allocation - they’re selling, implicitly or explicitly, up until the point they decide not to invest (will sell when they’re not sure, but hardest once they’ve decided to sell)
Big funds vs. small funds:
- For big multi-stage funds, they’re option bets at early stage, not investments
- Each investment should be able to return the fund. That’s why 2 questions will tell you almost everything you need to know about fund math: how many target investments, typical check size. (More questions would include investment horizon, and life stage of fund)
- Limited attention span - board seats aren’t all bad, check size also indication of how much they’re incentivized to care over time