20VC: How to Raise a Venture Fund from Deck to First Meetings to Final Close, Why Venture is a Young Person's Game and Why Multi-Stage Funds Have Not Ruined Seed with Rob Go, Co-Founder @ NextView

Rob Go is a co-founder and Partner at NextView, one of the leading seed firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Attentive, Devoted Health, Whoop, and Grove Collaborative. Prior to co-founding NextView, Rob was an investor at Spark Capital and held product and product marketing roles at Ebay. He began his career as a consultant at The Parthenon Group.

In Today’s Episode with Rob Go We Discuss:

1. Entry into the World of Venture:

• How a cold call from a VC firm led to Rob entering the world of venture?

• Why does Rob believe venture is a young person’s game?

• What does Rob know now that he wishes he had known when started in venture?

2. Preparing Docs for a Fundraise:

• What docs should fund managers have ready before they start the raise?

• How should they structure their data room?

• Where do the majority of LPs spend their time, document-wise?

• What are the single biggest mistakes emerging managers make preparing docs for a raise?

3. Meeting Your First LPs:

• What is the best way for emerging managers to meet LPs for the first time?

• Should they send the deck before or after the meeting?

• What questions should emerging managers ask to qualify LPs in or out of a meeting?

• What are some clear early signs that a first meeting went well?

4. Closing LPs: The Tips and Tricks:

• How important is it for a fund to have an anchor?

• How much of a fund should the anchor be?

• Are there different qualities of anchor LPs?

• Should managers ever sell part of their GP or give an LP part of the carry?

• What can managers do to enforce a sense of urgency to get LPs over the line?

• What are signs that an LP will not invest in the fund without rejecting you yet?

• Should emerging managers impose a minimum check size on new LPs?