“I wanted to do the deal but couldn’t get it through my partnership” is always such weaksauce
Podcasts are typically escapism for me, which is why I don’t listen to very many about tech or venture capital. Except The Learning Corner from Precursor, because I love Charles Hudson.
A few months back they were discussing Solo GPs and some ways their processes differ from larger partnerships. Prompted by a blog post from Ubiquity Ventures, Charles notes “the whole ‘I couldn’t get it through my partners,’ I’ve always found that to be a really unsatisfying thing to tell a founder,” for reasons of intellectual honesty, competency and/or agency.
CHARLES WE ARE SINGING FROM THE SAME HYMNAL MY FRIEND. Here’s the post I wrote a while back about the same topic.
So, if you’re raising from a multipartner VC firm, as most are, you should always:
I. Understand the decision making process at the firm
II. Use your lead partner to help you understand the firm’s general sentiment towards deals like yours (partnerships have long histories and they will/won’t like deals because it reminds them of successes/failures in the past)
III. Help your lead partner with their partners. You want as many advocates in the partner meeting as possible. Work with, but not around, your lead partner to ID backchannel references you can be providing, etc
And always enroll any current investors to help you navigate this — Homebrew can help 🙂
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Originally published at https://hunterwalk.com on February 17, 2025.
