Building trust post-licensing in fund management

Trust is a big focus during calls with prospective investors. I'll ask, 'what can I do to help build your trust?' Some examples: ➡️Due diligence on our deals and strategy What do you need to see or understand about our thesis & strategies? We have 'data rooms' filled with case studies of past deals, recorded webinars, pitch decks, market reports, and legal documents. When investors ask 'what do you need from me?', I'll usually answer with 'understanding'. I need my LPs to be educated on what we're doing & why we're doing it. ➡️Due diligence on me: What do you need to know about me? We talk about how much I co-invest, past wins, losses, and lessons learned, my background, track record and values. After nearly 100 passive investments in our deals, I have yet to get a question that has felt too probing. ➡️Social Proof: I want my reviews to speak for themselves, and I spend a lot of time thinking about the investor experience we offer. We also have an investor-only discord server, where LPs meet other LPs and see the latest on all of our deals. New investors want to talk with old investors, and we make introductions regularly. Our investor base wants to 'trust & verify', and I don't expect anyone to confidently write $50K investment checks to an internet stranger. Instead, I'm proactive in building that trust with our LPs. Not just so they can vet us, but we want to vet them, to make sure that the partnership will be a good one.

If you’re running an asset management company and you let investing slip from being the core of everything you do, and/or worse, you let integrity slip, no committee, brand campaign, or a series of reviews will save you. Over long term, performance becomes apparent. And when it does, you’ll realize you only ever had one job: to invest your unitholders’ capital competently and honestly. Everything else - marketing, sales, operations, etc. is there to support you. You must make their job easier. Competent and straightforward people should come and tell you that you don’t need them. You do, but you get the point. The foundation is trust, and that comes from 2 things: performance and alignment. A fund manager must think and act like a steward, not a salesman. Sales just happen because you are a good steward and a reasonable performer. You have to be the investor’s representative in the company, not someone trading their capital for career points. Investors must trust you. When that’s done right over time, reputation builds, outcomes improve, and the right kind of investors stick with you. Miss that, and over time, the stagnation is inevitable.

Running a Fund Is One Thing. Running a Firm Is Another. Raising a first fund is hard. Raising a second or third one is a different kind of hard. You need to go from reactive operations to firm-level execution. LPs aren’t just looking at your thesis anymore. They’re looking at your infrastructure. Can you run a real firm? Here’s what we see LPs quietly evaluating when you move from Fund I to Fund II and beyond: 📅Do you have a clean, up-to-date Schedule of Investments (SOI)?: This isn’t just a reporting requirement. It’s how you move faster, stay nimble, and operate with agility. Your fund admin needs it. Your team needs it. You need to track it against what your fund admin reports—and use it to model your own positions. 📊Are you tracking your fund budget and management company expenses? As your AUM grows, so do your operating costs—even if you keep the team lean. You want to have capital available when you need it. You want to understand your tax position. You want to know what you’re burning and where. 📋Is there a system for managing fund admin, audit, tax, and valuation partners and their deadlines? Do you have a real calendar that shows what’s happening and when? 📧Can you respond quickly to requests, reviews, and filings? Can you explain how investment decisions are made and is it documented? Having a process—even a simple one—builds internal discipline and external trust. Are compliance, side letters, and LPAC conversations organized and accessible? When diligence hits, you want your answers ready—not buried in inbox threads. ⚙️Do you have a real deal CRM, or just a spreadsheet from your last raise? LPs notice when relationship tracking is reactive. A system here signals that you’re building with the long game in mind. This isn’t about running a tight ship for the sake of it. It’s about showing you can manage capital and relationships. Because when LPs ask about your back office, they’re really asking if they can trust you to scale.