It was a great experience to attend Camp Hustle last week. I have been following the work of Elizabeth Yin (co-founder of Hustle Fund, a pre-seed fund that organized this event) on X for some time now. All this while, I kept seeing posts from the last 2 editions of the event.

This time, I was in town, in a relationship-building zone, and looking to add new and interesting LP-GP folks to my community. So, I landed up at the event (who would say no to spending 2.5 days in the idyllic surroundings of Los Gatos and Saratoga anyway!).

Honestly, I didn’t arrive with a specific agenda or expectations from the event. I just went in with an open mind and knowing the vibe of the Hustle Fund team, I instinctively knew this would likely be the best frame of mind for this gathering.

The event turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Now I know why the name has the word “Camp” in it – the entire event had an informal, outdoorsy, campy, yet energetic and authentic vibe to it. Everyone agreed to an informal social contract – no explicit pitching, no so-called networking and no shallow talk. Everyone bought into the idea of just getting to know a bunch of folks and really bringing their whole, authentic selves to the event.

While the free-flowing, candid conversations amidst nature were the highlight of the event, I did end up with some really actionable insights shared by the Hustle Fund team, other emerging managers as well as a few LPs. Sharing my notes below:

1/ Fundraising for emerging fund managers – via Charles Hudson (Precursor Ventures) and Virginie Raphael (Full Circle)

• While interacting with potential LPs, focus on making them a “fan” of the fund first. That is the first step towards eventually converting to an LP.
• One common mistake during fundraising as a first-time manager is chasing people too aggressively. The key is to put out your story and let people come to you.
• A great way to engage potential LPs is to send out a monthly/ quarterly newsletter. Also, Virginie mentioned doing informal LP meets in the Spring and Fall, so folks stay connected with the fund.
• The majority of potential LPs you meet today might eventually invest in Funds 2 and 3. So, it’s important to start building relationships from now.
• I asked Charles a question on ways to increase conversion on warm intros that a GP gets via existing LPs. While intuitively one might expect a healthy conversion on this type of lead, Charles confirmed that in his fundraising experience, the conversion on these referrals was indeed lower than expected.

2/ Venture investing learnings from the Hustle Fund team

During an informal AMA, Hustle Fund co-founders Elizabeth, Eric, and Shiyan shared the following top venture investing learnings from their anti-portfolio:

• Always bet on your friends.
• Don’t penny-pinch on valuation (they passed on an initial round of one of the largest consumer Internet outcomes because of valuation).
• “Good deals have legs” – when you like a founder, push as hard as possible to get into the deal. Don’t be afraid of being perceived as a pain, if it can help you get into the deal.
• Don’t over-index on what a market or company looks like right now. Learn to imagine what the market or a company can become “over a period of time”.

3/ Tips from an institutional LP

Courtney McCrea (Co-founder of Recast Capital) is one of the most experienced institutional LPs out there. In a candid Bonfire Session, she shared some insightful tips for emerging managers:

• During an LP pitch, don’t be afraid to talk about how great you are. In fact, spend the first 3 minutes in a pitch just talking about your unique superpowers.
• If you are having trouble creating a unique narrative for why your fund is different, ask your portfolio founders why they picked you and how they would pitch you to their friends.
• LPs look at who you co-invest with and who does follow-ons in your companies, as signals for the quality of your deal flow.
• There are so many LPs out there who aren’t pitched very often. Try and focus on them to improve your odds. Don’t underestimate the amount of capital that is out there looking to be deployed.

4/ Other helpful convos

• Matthew Stotts of Cerulean Ventures shared that outlining the 10-year vision and story of what the fund is looking to do, goes a long way in generating excitement as most LPs are looking not just for financial returns but also for impact in whatever their personal mission is.
• To re-engage with potential LPs in your funnel, try going back to them when you have an interesting development or story to share from the portfolio (eg. “we invested in Company X at the pre-seed stage and now, 12 months later, they just cracked a $XMn ACV deal”). This could also be done with a new differentiated investment or interesting deal flow.
• [Via Rahul Vohra, Founder and CEO of Superhuman] One of the best pieces of advice Rahul got while building Rapportive was to pick a strategy to go from Point A to Point B, never change your mind about it, and continue relentlessly executing it. The goal could be say reaching 1Mn users, $100k MRR, or any other metric. The key is to stick with it.

Hope these notes help emerging managers out there. Once again, thanks so much Team Hustle Fund for creating this unique event format. Am excited for the next one!

PS: For those in SE Asia, the next Camp Hustle is in Bali in September🏖️

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