# VC10X - From Zero to Fund One: Lessons from 1st time fund manager

An episode of [VC10X - Investing, Venture Capital, Asset Management, Family Office, Wealth Management](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1632806986), 3 Feb 2026, 39 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/a453ddd4/podcast/play/114905443/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-1-2%2F417301888-44100-2-20efc7031e692.mp3

In this episode, Kevin Moore shares the unfiltered story behind starting his first VC fund after nearly 15 years of preparation—from leaving a stable engineering career, to learning sales the hard way, to discovering why LPs don’t care about your past track record the way you think they do. ⭐ Sponsored by Podcast10x - Podcasting agency for VCs - https://podcast10x.com We go deep into: - Why there is never a “right time” to start a fund - The biggest misconceptions first-time GPs have about LP fundraising - Why selling is at least 50% of a VC’s job - The hidden costs (financial and emotional) of becoming a fund manager - How to think about fund size, LP targeting, and early credibility - What separates aspirational GPs from those who actually close Fund I - Kevin also opens up about doubt, discipline, faith, and the internal routines that helped him stay grounded through long stretches of uncertainty. If you’re: Considering launching your first fund Exploring a transition into venture capital Curious how LPs actually evaluate emerging managers Or simply want an honest look at what VC really looks like behind the scenes This episode is for you. Timestamps: (00:00) - Preview (00:45) - Introduction to the episode and guest, Kevin Moore (01:35) - Sponsor Read: Podcast10X (02:16) - Kevin's 16-year journey to starting a VC firm (02:53) - The origin story: From civil engineer to financial advisor (04:45) - The "never a right time" philosophy for making big leaps (05:03) - Key lessons learned from being a financial advisor (05:25) - Why sales skills are crucial for a General Partner (GP) (06:29) - Why choose venture capital over other finance paths? (08:15) - The first order of business when starting a VC firm (08:28) - The challenge of securing working capital and startup costs (10:06) - Balancing GP commitment and operational expenses (10:47) - How to de-risk a fund launch by pre-vetting LPs (12:40) - How to right-size your first fund (13:57) - Identifying and targeting the ideal LP profile (15:48) - The biggest misconception about LP fundraising (17:57) - What to do differently in the first 10 LP conversations (19:19) - How to pace conversations with LPs (20:00) - The "Know, Like, Trust" framework for LP relationships (22:14) - The most valuable "No" from an LP (25:42) - Designing the fund's identity and investment focus (27:44) - The most underestimated part of building a firm (29:12) - The first non-obvious hires and processes needed (30:52) - Overcoming serious doubts during fundraising (32:24) - Using daily routines to manage external uncertainty (33:54) - The most overrated advice for starting a VC firm (36:24) - The one thing to pressure test before quitting your job to start a fund (37:55) - Rapid Fire Round: Serac Ventures' Investment Strategy Connect with Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinjosephmoore/ https://substack.com/@kevinatseracvc Podcast Links: Prashant Choubey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/choubeysahab Subscribe to VC10X newsletter - https://vc10x.beehiiv.com Subscribe on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@VC10X Subscribe on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vc10x-investing-venture-capital-asset-management-private/id1632806986 Subscribe on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7F7KEhXNhTx1bKTBFgzv3k?si=WgQ4ozMiQJ-6nowj6wBgqQ VC10X website - https://vc10x.com For sponsorship queries, reach out to prashantchoubey3@gmail.com

## Transcript

[0:00] And what finally made you decide that now is the right time?
[0:03] Every big decision my wife and I have ever made in life, we
[0:07] always said to ourselves it was never going to be the right
[0:10] time, you just had to make it happen.
[0:12] If you look back at your first ten LP conversations, what would
[0:17] you do differently? I would just get to the point
[0:19] faster and there's nothing wrong with ending a conversation early
[0:23] to say hey I'd love to just continue building this
[0:25] relationship over time but it appears like we are not a fit
[0:30] right now. People before they invest in
[0:32] you, have to know you, like you, and then trust you, in that
[0:35] order. And was there a moment during
[0:37] fundraising when you seriously questioned whether this will
[0:40] work? The only way it wouldn't work
[0:42] was if I didn't work. Hey everyone, this is Prashanth
[0:47] and I'll be host for the VC10X podcast.
[0:50] And today we have Kevin Moo with us.
[0:52] Kevin is the founder and Magic partner at Cedac Ventures.
[0:55] In this episode, we unpack what it really takes to raise a
[0:58] venture fund as an emerging manager.
[1:00] We talk about timing, how to know when you're actually ready
[1:02] to make the leap, and what to do when it still doesn't feel like
[1:06] the right time. Then we get tactical on
[1:07] fundraising, how to qualify LP's faster, when it's OK to end a
[1:11] meeting early, and why the sequence of know you, like you,
[1:15] and trust you changes how you follow up with LP's.
[1:18] We also dig into the unglamorous work that signals institutional
[1:22] seriousness. Right sizing a fund, building
[1:24] proof before asking for bigger chicks.
[1:27] If you're building a fund or thinking about it, this
[1:29] conversation will save you time and sharpen your approach.
[1:32] So without wasting any time, let's dive straight in.
[1:35] This episode is. Brought to you by podcast.
[1:37] Enix, my podcasting agency for VCs.
[1:41] We help VC. Start and run branded podcast
[1:43] that can serve as their entire content engine.
[1:47] Turn the conversations you're already having into a machine 1
[1:50] recording becomes your presence on LinkedIn, Spotify, YouTube,
[1:54] and e-mail. Don't just build another VC
[1:57] firm, build a firm that can stand out to LP's and one that
[2:01] founders can brag about having you on their cap table.
[2:05] Check out our services at Podcast ten-x.com.
[2:07] I'll put the link in the description below.
[2:10] Now enjoy the episode. Hey Kevin, so good to have you
[2:13] on the VC10X podcast. How are you doing?
[2:15] Doing great. Thank you.
[2:17] Yeah, it's a pleasure having John and many congratulations on
[2:20] closing the first Serac Ventures fund, something you wanted to do
[2:26] for so long, right. So tell us the story because
[2:29] I've read that you near wanted to start AVC firm for nearly 15
[2:34] to 16 years. That's not something we hear
[2:36] about a lot. So give us that story.
[2:40] And what finally made you decide that now is the right time?
[2:44] And what would have made it too early or too late for you to
[2:50] start? And now, why now is the right
[2:52] time? The story is very simple.
[2:55] I got interested in finance my last year in college.
[2:59] I was actually studying to be a civil engineer.
[3:02] Graduated, became a civil engineer focusing on structures.
[3:07] Sitting at my desk one day, six months into the job, I just
[3:10] started jotting down my life goals and for each goal I had, I
[3:16] want to complete this goal by this specific age and at the
[3:21] time, whatever that however old I was, it was 15 years later.
[3:26] I actually thought I would start a venture capital firm within 5
[3:30] or 6 years, but time got away from me and I realized I started
[3:34] looking to the industry that there was so much I didn't know
[3:38] by not, not not only knowledge, but just people and the
[3:42] relationships. And I left that job as an
[3:46] engineer. I took a massive risk and took a
[3:49] 100% Commission job as a financial advisor just to learn
[3:54] the financial services industry. And it was that was that was
[3:59] that was the start of just learning all the different
[4:01] things that I needed to know. And to your point about timing,
[4:05] I wouldn't say that there was a right time.
[4:08] It was more of I finally arrived to a point where I feel like I'd
[4:12] acquired enough knowledge from all of the different things that
[4:16] I'd done over that 1516 year time period before.
[4:20] I felt like, OK, now's the right time.
[4:22] And I actually debated the starting the, the, the venture
[4:26] capital firm for two years for actually did it.
[4:30] So I felt ready after about 14 years, but didn't do it until 16
[4:36] years out of wondering when would be the right time.
[4:40] But it's almost kind of like when a couple is considering
[4:43] having children, sometimes they know it's like, oh, it's a great
[4:46] time. We got everything put together.
[4:48] We got finances, we got always, we got a household.
[4:50] So but every child that we've had or every big decision my
[4:54] wife and I have ever made in life, we always said to
[4:57] ourselves, it was never going to be the right time.
[5:00] You just had to make it happen, and that's what happened.
[5:04] Absolutely. That's a pretty amazing story
[5:06] there. And what were the things that
[5:10] you learned in your financial advisor role that you didn't
[5:14] know previously that you think are essential to being a venture
[5:17] capitalist? Biggest thing I took away from
[5:20] that job is how to build relationships and how to take
[5:23] people through a process of education about something that
[5:27] they were buying. And I think I have a natural
[5:31] ability to talk and about things to people and break complex
[5:36] matters down to more simple ones.
[5:38] But really that's just selling and being AGP. 50% of what you
[5:44] do is selling yourself, selling your product, selling your
[5:48] portfolio. And four years, I'd say in the
[5:52] trenches of learning how to do that with all types of financial
[5:56] products was very, very, I would not change that experience for
[6:01] the world. And so many people I think could
[6:03] benefit from having worked in a sales position before they
[6:08] become a, a, a general partner. There's so much of what you do
[6:12] is involved with that. It's not even just selling LP's.
[6:16] You have to sell yourself to founders, you have to sell
[6:18] yourself to your team. There's so much about that sort
[6:22] of muscle that I did not have before getting an adventure that
[6:26] I'm glad I do have because of that experience.
[6:29] Absolutely, quite interesting. And when you were interested
[6:33] into finance in in your college days, there were there are like
[6:38] so many different pathways that you could have taken.
[6:41] You can have, you know, the, the most popular entry point and
[6:46] that stage for people is, you know, going to stock market, buy
[6:49] some stocks and see how it goes. That's a good playing down as a
[6:53] starting place, right? And you can go in the allocation
[6:57] world, you know, and there's so many different jobs in the
[7:00] finance world. So why, why was it the venture
[7:02] capitalist job that excited you the most, which is like early
[7:06] stage start-ups? Why that?
[7:10] I wanted to be an owner and I loved technology when I first I
[7:15] mean you, what you're describing was the exact path I started
[7:19] investing, loved doing that, loved.
[7:21] I only invested in technology stocks, just in my own personal
[7:25] portfolio. And as I went through different
[7:28] areas of my career, I started to learn about investing at a high
[7:33] level and with different types of instruments and I learned
[7:36] about the different industries, private equity, investment
[7:39] banking, all these different verticals and how everything fit
[7:42] together. And then when I got to a point
[7:44] to where I could say, you know, what I'd like to get closer to
[7:48] these companies at the inception where the value is being created
[7:52] versus what I had been doing is just investing once they were
[7:55] public. And that was the, that was the
[7:57] start, that was an interest. And that was, I think that's the
[7:59] fun part and is the really, really hard part.
[8:02] And I've always enjoyed doing really hard things and that just
[8:06] sort of the perfect mixture of that as a profession that with
[8:10] my personality and also just the interest in investing venture
[8:13] capital was just the perfect place for me.
[8:16] Absolutely. So when you decided that, OK,
[8:19] now is the right time, I'll now start a venture capital firm,
[8:22] what was the 1st order of business for you, right.
[8:25] What were the first things that you got to?
[8:28] The most important thing that I was worried about was having
[8:31] enough money to actually do it. I've been sitting my we'd had
[8:35] been saving our personal finances and I had a plan to
[8:40] even use some of my retirement assets to do it.
[8:43] But I was fortunate enough to find an investor who came in as
[8:47] a very, very small minority partner in the GP to give what
[8:51] was just critical working capital.
[8:54] I mean one of the impediments to people becoming GPS, it's just
[8:58] the incredible cost that it start that it takes to get
[9:01] going. 250,000 is on the low end of what it takes.
[9:07] And I had the experience of working at a fund of funds
[9:11] manager that had a hybrid strategy of investing in a lot
[9:15] of funds as well as Co investing with them.
[9:18] And I would see in their formation documents that they're
[9:22] organizational expense caps were like astronomically high, like
[9:25] 800,001 million. I don't think I ever saw one
[9:28] that was even 250,000. And in your head you're
[9:31] thinking, man, if I ever want to start a venture capital farm,
[9:34] where am I going to get that money from?
[9:35] So even if I had wanted to, I wasn't in a position to ever
[9:39] have that money at the time. And then I didn't even know
[9:43] anyone who could even front the money for that.
[9:46] So all those factors have to come into play.
[9:49] But those are the realities of some of the roadblocks that
[9:53] people face when they're trying to get into this space.
[9:56] And again, I don't think it costs that much now given
[10:01] technology and all the things that have changed, but back at
[10:03] that, that in those times it certainly did.
[10:07] Absolutely completely agree. I think that is 1 aspect that
[10:11] people who are aspiring to become venture capitalists don't
[10:16] understand at first, that there is an inherent cost to becoming
[10:20] a fund manager. So and, and on one side it's
[10:22] like the GP commitment that there is.
[10:24] And then the other aspect of that is the operational aspect.
[10:28] So did you manage to get those right for yourself?
[10:33] I think the GP commitment has to be particularly funded by the
[10:36] manager himself or herself, right?
[10:38] And the operational one can also be done by the people backing
[10:42] you. A part of the fees can go into
[10:45] that aspect. So give me a view into that.
[10:47] Yeah, you can do it either of those structures.
[10:50] The way that I did it was just using my own Personal Capital
[10:53] that saved up over the years, understanding that I wanted to
[10:58] do this one day. There are some ways to do it,
[11:03] but a lot of times the, the the way that you can do it has a lot
[11:06] to do with if your LP's are OK with that type of structure.
[11:10] There are some LP's who are like, no, we want your hard cash
[11:14] in the deal right now and you're not sort of going to put it into
[11:17] in there at some later point by deferring your management fees.
[11:21] And there are others who say we don't care.
[11:23] But I think that's kind of why it's very important to
[11:25] understand who your LP's are and who you're talking to, to get a
[11:28] sense of like how you can even structure this.
[11:30] So in order to prepare to do it, part of my preparation was
[11:34] talking to potential investors, giving them an idea of what the
[11:38] fund would do, how it will be structured, how much I was
[11:41] trying to raise all those details and getting them on
[11:44] board before actually leaving to start the fund.
[11:48] And I say this because this is actually what I learned as a
[11:52] financial advisor, one of the first places I worked, they
[11:55] would not hire you unless you went through this sort of
[11:58] exercise, this sort of mock financial advisor role of
[12:04] figuring out how effective your personal network would be in
[12:09] helping you to get started. And I effectively employed the
[12:13] same strategy before starting Serac Ventures.
[12:16] It was like how many people out there might support me?
[12:19] What is that actual dollar number and what percent of those
[12:22] will actually convert in a first close?
[12:25] So it's very sort of thoughtful. It happened over a course of
[12:29] probably 6 to 12, maybe 12 to 18 months before actually launching
[12:34] and getting going. I wanted to try to de risk it as
[12:37] much as possible for Sean before getting going.
[12:40] Absolutely. And how how did you think about
[12:43] right sizing your first fund? You know, what were the
[12:46] different figures you were thinking and what did you come
[12:49] to? Finally that OK, this is the
[12:51] number. The, I knew that no matter what
[12:55] we did, we need to have at least $10 million to deploy for fun
[12:59] one, just to prove out the thesis and the strategy
[13:02] aggressively whenever I was first starting Serac ventures
[13:06] like, OK, maybe I'll bring out another GP to start and we can
[13:09] deploy $30 million. Well, as you know, the, the, the
[13:13] market has been a little slow for venture capital of the last
[13:16] few years. So right sizing it meant, you
[13:19] know what, let's get a foundational floor built for
[13:22] how, how we're going to invest, what type of founders we're
[13:25] going to do, how we think we can add value just to all of our
[13:28] internal operations. Let's get that into a scalable
[13:33] platform and then when we go out for our next fund, we have all
[13:38] this evidence of all the things that we've been doing right and
[13:41] 10 million was the right number to do that.
[13:43] We raised a little bit more than that, but that was the absolute
[13:46] minimum that we had heard from institutional investors that we
[13:50] needed to show such that it didn't look like what a lot of
[13:52] people call like a fund zero. We really wanted this to be like
[13:55] a true fund one. Absolutely.
[13:58] And in terms of the LP's you were targeting while reaching
[14:03] our first, you mentioned first, first of all, you need to look
[14:05] in your network at what the people who can support you and
[14:08] get those first dollars in. But then beyond that, what how
[14:12] did you arrive at the ideal LP type?
[14:15] And that you're going to reach out to and try to get them to
[14:17] support you? I've, I've learned from my
[14:20] previous experience that I knew exactly what certain types of
[14:26] LP's were looking for. And if you're not worked in
[14:30] venture capital, then you, you may not know that.
[14:33] So I knew who I was not reaching out to.
[14:34] I was not reaching out to a billion dollar anyone that was a
[14:38] billion dollars. I was not reaching out to just
[14:40] point hands down, we were too small.
[14:43] That included pension funds, a lot of endowments, not even
[14:48] going to bother. Sovereign wealth didn't even
[14:51] matter quite frankly. Many family offices now are
[14:56] doing a lot of their own direct investing.
[14:58] So unless we had like a mature portfolio to debt to show we
[15:04] wanted to Co invest, we'll allow these people.
[15:05] We couldn't do that. So largely it came down to who
[15:09] are the people who I know are looking for emerging managers,
[15:13] who are the high net worth investors that I have that have
[15:16] interest in venture capital, who are the few family offices that
[15:20] I know. And we actually did bring in a
[15:22] couple of foundations that were smaller, but matching your fund
[15:28] size according to the LP's, like minimum deployable capital, just
[15:35] for them to get sort of the marks that they need.
[15:38] That's a simple exercise and just comes from asking them
[15:43] what's their minimum check size and what are they looking for
[15:45] and then just moving on if it doesn't fit within your
[15:47] strategy. Absolutely.
[15:50] That's that's a great approach there.
[15:51] And what was the biggest misconception you had about LP
[15:55] fundraising before you started, and what surprised you the most
[15:59] once you're actually in the market?
[16:01] I love this question because I've been investing at this
[16:05] point for almost almost over 15 years in a variety of different
[16:12] things, public markets, the private markets.
[16:15] I'd done a lot of different things from the LP side, GP
[16:18] side, and even had some successes.
[16:20] So it was all this sort of disparate, fragmented investment
[16:25] history that I was showing to LP's.
[16:28] And guess what? None of them cared at all.
[16:31] And the reason they didn't care was because the strategy that I
[16:35] was talking about at Sorak Ventures was completely new and
[16:39] untested. It's still investing, but it's
[16:43] investing on my terms and what we're looking for and how we're
[16:47] doing it. I had overweighted that, oh,
[16:51] they'll see me as an investor, someone who knows how to do this
[16:54] versus they're looking at more at the portfolio and it doesn't
[16:59] have that sort of those marks yet.
[17:02] But now that we have those, it's, it's a different
[17:04] conversation. But that was a misconception
[17:06] because I'd always worked in an environment where I was
[17:10] investing or doing something on someone else's reputation.
[17:15] I worked at a firm as an investor more my majority of my
[17:19] career. But when you leave and you start
[17:21] a fund on your own, you're graded way more heavily on that
[17:26] then I think other things that you've done, especially if it's
[17:29] a dissimilar strategy. Absolutely.
[17:32] So you're saying your individual reputation matters a lot and
[17:36] your unique access to the kind of deals that you're planning to
[17:39] do that matters a lot to LP's? I'd say that the misconception
[17:45] was I didn't think that would matter as much as I thought my
[17:49] past investment experience would.
[17:51] Across all these different areas.
[17:54] What really mattered to them was what I was doing with Serac
[17:57] Ventures. Got it, Got it.
[18:01] If you look back at your first ten LP conversations, what would
[18:06] you do differently? I would just get to the point
[18:10] faster. I would ask more targeted
[18:11] questions around what they invest in.
[18:15] Are they, are they deploying right now?
[18:18] What's their history of backing managers like myself, you know,
[18:22] just more sort of factual, quantitative information.
[18:26] And then if you get the affirmative that that LP is not
[18:29] a fit, then it's just some more of a relationship building
[18:32] exercise. One of the greatest assets that
[18:36] we all have and emerging managers especially, is our
[18:39] time. So the sooner you can get to
[18:42] understanding that with an LP, the better to save you time.
[18:46] It saves them time. And there's nothing wrong with
[18:49] ending a conversation early to say, hey, I'd love to just
[18:52] continue building this relationship over time, but it
[18:55] appears like we are not a fit right now.
[18:59] I'm certainly brave enough to do that now.
[19:02] But you know, when you're starting out and you're sort of
[19:04] desperate to get an LP just to even talk to you, you might even
[19:09] go through not only that meeting, but following up,
[19:12] etcetera. I will not ever do that again.
[19:16] But you just kind of live and learn.
[19:19] Yeah, absolutely. Quite interesting.
[19:20] And LP's are not always very transparent about how much they
[19:26] are deploying or even they are actively deploying currently or
[19:30] not and all sort of different things.
[19:33] So getting those answers from them early on is, I think super
[19:37] important. And then how do you base the
[19:40] conversation with LP's because they can be slow in how they
[19:45] look at deals and you know, when it comes to closing or writing
[19:49] the money and showing different things.
[19:51] So how do you deal with that? Do you set expectations that OK,
[19:55] when can this be done or can we expect this by this date and so
[19:58] on. So give me a view into that.
[20:01] This is really more of an art than a science.
[20:04] And I'm just gonna tell you my science behind it and I'll
[20:09] summarize it high level, then maybe get more granularity.
[20:12] But someone told me it's a really smart placement agent guy
[20:16] that I know. He said people before they
[20:19] invest in you have to know you like you and then trust you, in
[20:22] that order. And if you look across any LP
[20:25] that has ever said no, it's because one of those things
[20:29] didn't happen. And it's again, this is an LP
[20:32] that is deploying capital. They might know you like you and
[20:35] trust you, they just don't have any money.
[20:38] So fundamentally, I think about that with every single person.
[20:42] So I think getting an LP to like me or Sarak Ventures is just
[20:48] like this. Great conversation, great
[20:50] camaraderie. We have great sort of rapport.
[20:54] The trust you know you like you and trust you is they see you in
[21:00] in sort of in the ecosystem. You're at events, they're
[21:04] reading your blogs, they're looking and listening to your
[21:07] podcasts. And then the trust you part is
[21:10] where you're constantly giving them information that
[21:13] demonstrates that you're trustworthy.
[21:15] You are sending them investment updates when you make them, you
[21:19] are giving them visibility into how you do what you do.
[21:23] And that process can take anywhere from 12 to 18 months.
[21:27] So I say to myself, if I meet an LP today, if it wasn't a
[21:32] referral or someone who say, oh, you absolutely have to invest, I
[21:35] already know automatically it's going to take at least that long
[21:39] before will be considered. And especially for the larger
[21:43] ones, I met LP's in fund one that I believe will be LP's in
[21:49] our Fund 3. So we're just keeping them in
[21:51] the loop. And in the past, this is always
[21:54] how it has worked out. So I understand that motion.
[21:57] So I'm a little bit less anxious when someone isn't responsive
[22:01] right away. It just takes time for those
[22:03] three things that happened. But the degree to which you can
[22:05] do that consistently, you'll start to see that manifest and
[22:09] sort of be fruitful whenever they do make the decision to
[22:13] invest. Absolutely that's going to be
[22:16] quite helpful for managers listing especially new ones
[22:20] starting out or aspiring to So if there's one LP no that taught
[22:25] you the most and why I'll. Tell you my favorite LP that I
[22:29] meet with on a regular basis is Deroja Capital.
[22:34] Rodlyn Etienne is the founder of that firm.
[22:38] She's an experienced institutional investor over 30
[22:42] years working across different places as CIO and asset manager
[22:47] and having her perspective on operational industry, all these
[22:55] different things has been incredibly beneficial.
[22:57] As well as having her financial support in the fund just creates
[23:01] another sounding board and is really one of the best sort of
[23:05] LP dynamics that you can have someone who says, hey, I'll
[23:09] support you financially, but also anything else that you need
[23:12] that. I think it's very rare because
[23:15] LP's are very busy. But if you can strike up a
[23:19] relationship with one that you can bounce ideas off of, whether
[23:23] it's your annual meeting, obviously the Raja is on our
[23:26] Advisory Board, but it's one of those things where you get that
[23:31] institutional feedback on a regular basis.
[23:35] It's something that I think a lot of GPS need but don't get.
[23:39] So I'm very fortunate to have Rodland in Seracs Circle in
[23:43] order to to keep that relationship growing now and
[23:47] into the future. Got it.
[23:49] So she committed to the Serac Ventures fund, they're deployed.
[23:53] She did. OK.
[23:54] So my question that was helpful, but my question was actually one
[23:59] LP, no, the LP that declined and the story behind it that talk to
[24:04] you the most. So that was the question.
[24:07] Well, given that the so many LP's did decline, the biggest
[24:13] one was. I won't name specifically who
[24:17] this was, but part of the feedback that resonated with me
[24:21] the most was right sizing the fund, getting that track record,
[24:28] staying in touch, showing them efficacy of your strategy, and
[24:33] then coming back for fun. One.
[24:35] I think that really is a very meaningful feedback to show that
[24:40] their compliment to me was, hey Kevin, it shows a lot of
[24:44] maturity that you were willing to take that suggestion, get
[24:48] your fun going, get it off the ground.
[24:50] Show me with actual evidence that you are going to do what
[24:54] you say you're going to do. It sort of notches me up.
[24:57] This same LP also said to me he was like, man, you know, people
[25:01] say they are serious about getting my attention and and
[25:07] doing all the things that an institutional stage VC would do,
[25:11] but they won't create a due diligence questionnaire.
[25:15] And people hate doing those because they're like 50 pages
[25:18] long. So I literally took a month, put
[25:22] all the details in there and I sent it to them and I got that
[25:25] meeting. And that just sort of solidified
[25:27] in that person's mind that I'm taking the feedback serious.
[25:30] We're trying to do this at an institutional level.
[25:34] And even though they didn't invest, those are the things
[25:36] that they want to see such that they will invest.
[25:39] And I think we're going to be well positioned there for fun
[25:41] too. Absolutely.
[25:43] That's helpful. And how did you design A Cedac's
[25:47] identity early on, including your investment focus, decision
[25:50] making style and what you wanted founders to feel after meeting
[25:54] you? It's interesting writing that on
[25:58] paper because of course you want to be a value add to founders
[26:04] and you want to invest in this and that and how much and and
[26:08] when and all these different stages.
[26:11] But in reality, at the stage that we invest in at the Seed
[26:15] Sage founders really need help with two things, go to market
[26:19] strategy and downstream access to capital funding like
[26:24] relationships, that's where they are.
[26:27] And if we can do that on a consistent basis, that's where I
[26:31] think we shine. We have relationships with
[26:34] downstream investors that help and we also have not just
[26:38] myself, but advisors at Serag Ventures that are helping them
[26:42] with that go to market motion. I also think that, you know,
[26:47] Serag Ventures first started, I thought our original mission was
[26:51] just to work with founders who had Lex assets less access to
[26:56] the venture capital or geographies that had less access
[27:00] to venture capital. But now we're starting to
[27:02] attract these founders who are approaching problems differently
[27:07] and are attacking really big ideas where there's sort of
[27:11] misalignment, whether with technology or regulatory or
[27:15] cultural shifts that are happening in the in the market
[27:20] and putting together a portfolio of those so that people could
[27:22] see a theme of, OK, these are the type of founders that are
[27:26] coming to surreact ventures. And these are the type, this is
[27:29] the type of help that they're able to get.
[27:31] And that is happening consistently.
[27:34] But again, these are sort of things that we didn't write that
[27:36] down on paper. We had a plan, but it has slowly
[27:40] evolved to be better than the plan and be something that we
[27:43] can build on going forward. Absolutely.
[27:45] And that's that's amazing. And beyond raising capital,
[27:48] which parts of buildings rack ventures turned out to be the
[27:52] most underestimated for you? Like the hardest, the hardest
[27:58] part of building a company in general, whether it's Serac
[28:02] Ventures or what you do. And it is people there have
[28:07] been, I wouldn't say a lot of people that have been in the
[28:11] Serac Ventures orbit, but finding the right people who
[28:15] really buy into the mission of what you're building long term.
[28:19] And I look at it like sometimes people are here for a long time
[28:22] and sometimes people are here for a short time and they're all
[28:25] here for a purpose is to get to that long term mission.
[28:29] But finding people who can really buy into that strategy
[28:32] and have a complementary skill set to get to get you there is
[28:36] the absolute hardest thing to do because there's the GP and the
[28:40] founder. You're all in, like I have
[28:43] literally burned the, the, the bridges burn, the dock burn,
[28:48] whatever that saying is. And I'm not going back.
[28:51] This is all I got. This is my livelihood.
[28:53] So of course I'm all in. Finding people that are like
[28:57] that is very, very difficult, especially when you have limited
[29:01] resources. So I don't think that'll be a
[29:04] problem forever. But I don't look at it as a
[29:07] problem. It's just one of the dynamics
[29:09] that exists when you're starting something from from the ground
[29:12] up. Yeah, absolutely.
[29:14] And what were the first known obvious hires, tools or
[29:18] processors? You realized you need it once
[29:21] the firm became real? The, the idea of going as a solo
[29:25] GP was difficult for me at first and I didn't the, the Firm
[29:30] didn't start out like that. Then I thought to myself, OK,
[29:35] well I've always been an investor.
[29:37] I've always worked in investing in companies and coaching and
[29:40] etcetera, but I've never been a founder myself.
[29:43] So how do I fill that gap so that investors in the market
[29:47] have confidence and Sarak's ability to understand where the
[29:50] founders coming from? So the first person I brought on
[29:53] was a venture partner with just significant operating experience
[29:57] and he's done really well. And then I built what I call the
[30:01] Serac Ventures Guild, which is a group of professionals who are
[30:06] really good at what they do. And every single founder that we
[30:10] work with at the later stages of due diligence, they have to
[30:13] present their company to all of the Guild members on a, on a, on
[30:18] a call and those Guild members pepper them with questions about
[30:21] different things that sometimes we didn't think about.
[30:24] So it has really has sort of filled those voids of, OK,
[30:29] you're an investor. This founder needs operating
[30:31] this or they need this over here.
[30:33] We have, I have been fortunate enough to find these people who
[30:36] have consistently been there to add that knowledge where I don't
[30:41] have it or something else where I don't have it.
[30:44] And that, that has come as a surprise as to how effective
[30:49] that has been, even as a solo GP.
[30:52] Yeah, absolutely. And was there a moment during
[30:55] fundraising when you seriously questioned whether this will
[30:57] work or how did you get through that phase?
[31:02] I always got to a point where the only way it wouldn't work
[31:07] was if I didn't work. And what I mean by that is I
[31:12] believe so much in myself to not quit that I would do whatever it
[31:19] takes to make it work. And there certainly are days,
[31:23] mornings where you wake up and you realize that, man, it's been
[31:28] two or three months since we've had any sort of LP interest.
[31:31] And you have to decide at those moments, like, are you going to
[31:35] get scared and, and, and stop working as hard or you or you
[31:39] just going to double down. And every single time that I
[31:42] felt that fear and that doubt and that anxiety around where's
[31:47] the next opportunity coming from, I've always somehow, maybe
[31:51] just by the grace of God, been able to just double down and
[31:55] work even harder and eventually something happens.
[31:59] So having a history of seeing that happen of just like when
[32:02] you're facing this insurmountable doubt, you just
[32:06] go harder. It's kind of like I remember
[32:10] watching a movie. I don't remember what movie, but
[32:13] the guy said what? What do you do when you're in a
[32:16] in between a rock and a hard place?
[32:18] You just like, you just got to go deeper and sometimes that's
[32:22] the only option. So that's how I've approached
[32:24] it. Yeah, absolutely.
[32:26] Quite amazing. And you've spoken about faith
[32:30] and daily discipline playing a role in that.
[32:32] How did your internal routines change once the external
[32:36] uncertainty increased? Every single day all of us are
[32:43] faced with uncertainties like when you wake up in the morning,
[32:49] you have no idea what is going to happen that day.
[32:54] It's out of your control. So way I started grounding
[32:58] myself and have always sort of done this, but certainly with
[33:01] Serac Ventures got more structured about it since
[33:03] starting. It is thinking about what are
[33:06] the things every single day that I can control, and I want to
[33:11] make sure that at a minimum, I do those things every single
[33:15] day. It's my prayer time.
[33:18] I'm just like devotion meditation.
[33:21] It's my intellectual reading about the industry, reading
[33:24] books. It's my physical fitness
[33:27] prioritizing that and everything else I can't control.
[33:33] But if I can do that every single day, it sort of gives me
[33:36] sanity to deal with the chaos of uncertainty that is that we will
[33:42] regularly encounter every single day.
[33:44] I encourage everyone to find that sort of routine before the
[33:47] day starts because this business is so volatile, you need
[33:53] something to keep you stable. Absolutely, I completely agree
[33:56] on that. What is the most overrated
[33:59] advice about starting AVC film? That you got to have this
[34:04] unbelievable deal flow and access like that.
[34:08] There's so many, there's so much opportunity out there that
[34:11] finding deal flow to me is not the problem in this business.
[34:15] I think the problem in this business is the strength of
[34:18] people's networks as well as their ability to understand the
[34:22] operational side of running a venture capital firm.
[34:25] You know, just because someone was a great operator doesn't
[34:28] mean they're going to be a great investor.
[34:30] Like you see a lot of that, that story of so and so built this
[34:35] company and now they're AVC or so and so's rich and now they're
[34:40] AVC. There's so much operational
[34:42] nuances to growing a firm, especially an investment
[34:45] platform that is not talked about that I think people should
[34:51] talk about more just kind of like what we talked about
[34:54] needing the upfront money to do it.
[34:56] And once you have added value to a founder, how do you
[34:59] consistently do that across 50 or 100 companies and so on and
[35:04] so forth. So I as Agpi think about those
[35:08] operational things all the time. In fact, I had a sleepless night
[35:13] last night thinking about how do we go from we're, we currently
[35:17] have 12 companies in our portfolio.
[35:19] We want to have 25. Our plan is have 25 in this
[35:23] portfolio, but how do we consistently add value to every
[35:26] single one? We get a lot of inbound deal
[35:28] flow and one of my passions is for every single founder that
[35:32] reaches out to Sarat Ventures, we want to give them a
[35:35] personalized response as to why we are either going to meet with
[35:39] them or not. How do we operationalize that.
[35:42] So those are the sort of things I keep thinking about because I
[35:44] see my role in this industry as a steward of this position to
[35:50] encourage people to pursue their dreams and do something big, not
[35:55] to just cast them off as something that it doesn't
[35:57] matter. It's a huge sacrifice to start a
[36:00] company. It takes a lot of commitment
[36:02] from a lot of people, a lot of energy.
[36:05] So if I can be a positive sort of role in that process, I'd
[36:10] like Sorek Ventures to do that. Yeah, absolutely.
[36:14] And when you say networks matter, I think network also in
[36:19] other words, in other words means deal flow to a certain
[36:23] extent that OK be this is where your deals are going to come
[36:26] from. So coming to the last question
[36:30] before we try to close this out with the rapid firearm, for
[36:33] someone considering launching their first fund in the next one
[36:37] or two years, what is the one thing they should pressure test
[36:41] before quitting their job? They absolutely should spend 6
[36:45] to 12 months researching that network and getting buy in even
[36:51] soft commitments on hey, what if I do this?
[36:56] Would you back me? And then doing a probability
[37:01] analysis to understand what that real number will be so that
[37:04] you're not scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to figure
[37:08] out who's going to support you. The other thing I'd say is take
[37:12] some of your own money and warehouse a few deals.
[37:15] Demonstrate that you can get into a few companies, add some
[37:19] value and the check size doesn't isn't that important.
[37:23] It's the fact that you found the companies, you put some skin in
[37:27] the game and you put together a thoughtful analysis as to why.
[37:32] And then what I did, I rolled those warehouse companies into
[37:36] the first close and it really showed my LP's that I was all in
[37:42] and that the companies that we had invested in were
[37:45] representative of the type of companies that would populate
[37:48] the fund once it was formed. So I would do those two things
[37:51] and recommend that to everybody considering starting a fund.
[37:55] Absolutely. Yeah, that's extremely helpful
[37:57] advice for anyone thinking of starting a phone.
[38:00] Now to the rapid fire on. I'll ask you 6 quick questions
[38:04] about the investing you're doing and you have to give 6 quick
[38:07] answers. So the first one is what are the
[38:10] sectors and regions you invest in?
[38:13] We really like B to B to C consumer fintech companies as
[38:17] well as process optimization technologies.
[38:21] And right now, we're primarily investing in the United States.
[38:25] Got it. What's the typical stage of
[38:27] investment? C.
[38:29] Do you lead rounds? Sometimes.
[38:32] OK. What's the typical check size
[38:34] you put in? Around 4 to 500,000 initial
[38:39] check. OK, where you can founders get
[38:42] in touch. LinkedIn is the best place to
[38:45] reach me. I'm always there or you can
[38:49] follow me on sub stack. Awesome.
[38:52] I'm guessing that'll be the answer to the next one as well,
[38:54] which is where you can all listen to us follow you.
[38:57] OK sub stack or LinkedIn? Yeah, So I'll make sure to put
[39:01] those links in the show notes below.
[39:03] Thanks so much for doing this with us, Kevin.
[39:07] I wish you all the very best for investing and I hope I said
[39:11] Acquaintance becomes a multi fund organization going ahead.
[39:14] Thank you. Thank you for the invitation.
[39:18] Thanks so much.

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