38/52: The LP Institute
#CapitalAtRisk
The 2010s was the decade of the Entrepreneur. The 2020s will be the decade of the Investor.
“Go make a ruckus”.
Seth Godin
Welcome to new subscribers…
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💰 Paid subscribers get access to all posts, the angel investor Q&A podcast I did during the 2020 lockdowns, the full archive and can request a video call to ask me anything and talk about the things I don’t share anywhere else.
💰💰💰 Founding Members get all paid benefits plus you get to WhatsApp me unlimited questions for discussion, you get a one hour discussion session once a quarter plus a great lunch in London, on me.
Bragging rights
I’ve had that, “The 2010s was the decade of the Entrepreneur. The 2020s will be the decade of the Investor” line, above for a while.
Yeah, but why?
The Entrepreneur
In 2008, when I started looking into what startups were all about, it was a bit weird to start a startup in the UK. I was working for a software company in the City at the time and during my lunch hour1 I’d walk up to Old Street and around Hoxton Square sort of looking for startups and daydreaming what it would be like to work on something exciting inside one of those scruffy offices.
In 2009 I discovered more about venture capital at business school and in 2010 got a job with a VC, a firm called Pembridge Partners. The salary was 50% lower than that IT role2 but I loved that VC job and I worked harder at it than at any other employee gig.
As 2010 rolled in it was still a bit weird to start a startup — the City types said it was the sort of thing people did when they couldn’t get a proper job — yet people were doing it. Inside those scruffy offices around Old Street, where the wifi and toilet worked but not much else, people were making websites, tech products and big dreams.
That was the beginning of this latest wave of entrepreneurship. In 2010 it was weird but by 2019 everyone had their own startup idea.
And the more startups the better — keep going — but for those who’ve hit the jackpot or for those still in their day-jobs but wanting a piece of the action there’s…
The Investor
In 2020, sure, investors were investing but it was a tiny number of VCs and a very small bunch of angel investors. Crowdcube was a pioneer but still very small, and to be an angel investor people thought you had to be like Peter Jones on Dragon’s Den in a posh suit with a pile of money just sitting there doing nothing until you threw a morsel of it at an entrepreneur. Whatever you invested was a drop in the ocean compared to your vast wealth! That was just who angel investors were.
Not any more — now pretty much everyone I meet is an angel investor and the kudos they want is to be able to say, “Ah, well, I was an early investor in…3”.
The more of it the better… but what’s a step above even that?
The Limited Partner
The thing is, if you angel invest then you have to source, filter, evaluate and diligence startups. If you can do that in amongst everything else you have going on in life then you also have to be able to have your money accepted by them (not as easy as you might think and certainly not 2010s-easy). If they do take your money you then have to track them, read the updates, wonder if you can offer help (but also keep out the way, there’s nothing worse than a meddling investor), keep on top of signing the paperwork, filing in the paperwork and finding the paperwork when someone asks for it.
What happens if you want to do more investing into better startups, have less of the hassle and get more bragging rights?
The Limited Partner, or ‘LP’ is where it’ll go next. I reckon the, “Ah, well, I’m an LP in that fund” is next level and by 2029 everyone will want to be an LP.
VC is pretty obscure though — it’s about finance, but not finance; it’s about massive returns but most investments fail (80/20, see below!); and it’s about investing in the obscure long before it becomes obvious.
If you’re curious then have a look at this run by the same people as the VC Lab that I’m in right now.
The deadline for the next cohort is today, 4th November, so get stuck in. There’ll be more cohorts, of course, but the earlier you get in the better — you’ll get to meet Adeo and the LP Institute team, and the relationships you’ll build will other LPs will be fun in the short-term and no doubt lucrative in the long-term.
What do you reckon?
If you want me to connect you to Adeo or ask me anything just hit reply.
In other news
📚 Seth Godin has a new book out, here. I bought a few copies as part of his pre-publication promo so will be posting them to good folks in the coming weeks… 🎅🏻
📘 Richard Koch has a new book out too, ‘80/20 Daily’, here. I met up with Richard in 2017, here, interviewed him in 2020, here, and ended up working with him for a while. I was even in the latest edition of ‘The 80/20 Principle’, here and below 📖
💰 I’m into the third week of VC Lab and it is… excellent. Email me if you want to find out what’s going on — just hit reply 🧑💻
More from me?
If you like my writing you can get more by buying my book, ‘Find your 9others’. It’s on Amazon here.
And if you’ve already read ‘Find your 9others’ please leave an Amazon review here.
Q&A
🆓 Free subscribers get a short preview and all free public posts. NB: All posts in 2024 will have paid-subscriber-only parts.
💰 Paid subscribers get access to all posts, the angel investor Q&A podcast I did during the 2020 lockdowns, the full archive and can request a video call to ask me anything and talk about the things I don’t share anywhere else.
💰💰💰 Founding Members get all paid benefits plus you get to WhatsApp me unlimited questions for discussion, you get a one hour discussion session once a quarter plus a great lunch in London, on me.
Important: None of these posts are investment advice. If you are thinking about investing you should seek the advice of a suitably qualified independent advisor.
#CapitalAtRisk
Or rather, lunch hour-plus-as-much-as-I-dared. Hated that place.
Which would now be called ‘FinTech’.