What is the density of your founder NPS? | El Pack w/ Charlotte Zhang

<p>“We’re going into a world where there will be an increase in inequality in terms of the have’s versus have-not’s. And so if you are invested in some of the have’s, I would actually bet on their acceleration of value aggregation in the later stages of scaling which is why I, personally, think a winning strategy is to hold onto them for as long as possible.&quot;</p><p><strong>Charlotte Zhang</strong> from Inatai Foundation is back! And if you&#39;ve tuned into her first episode on Superclusters, you&#39;ll know exactly why. Charlotte has been one of my favorite guests on the podcast, marrying both her profound ability for deep analysis with strong framework-oriented assessments. You might remember her 4 P&#39;s to underwriting every manager from our prior episode.</p><p>Naturally I had to have her back for an El Pack episode to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on 3 GPs at VC funds to ask 3 different questions.</p><p>99VC&#39;s <strong>Lisa Yu</strong> asks about what LPs look for in Fund I&#39;s beyond track record.</p><p>Escape Velocity&#39;s <strong>Mahesh Ramakrishnan</strong> asks about recycling and what happens when you have 30% of your fund size as distributions in the first few years of the fund.</p><p>Founder Embassy&#39;s <strong>Helena Gagern</strong> asks about investing in AI frontier labs where the first round of financing already puts the company at $400M+ in valuation. And also, how do you communicate to LPs that you have an &quot;exceptionalism&quot; bucket to invest out of?</p><p>As the director of investments at Inatai Foundation, <strong>Charlotte Zhang</strong> oversees the selection of external investment managers, conducts portfolio research, and helps to institutionalize processes, tools, and resources. She previously served as a senior associate at ICONIQ Capital and, before that, Medley Partners. When not working, you can find her globetrotting (18 countries and counting), writing a Yelp review about the best bite in town, or cuddling up with a book and her two adorable cats.</p><p>You can find Charlotte on her LinkedIn here:</p><p>LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotterzhang/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotterzhang/</a></p><p><strong>OUTLINE:</strong></p><p>(00:00) Intro</p><p>(01:04) What&#39;s new in Charlotte&#39;s life?</p><p>(04:06) LPs Charlotte would love to meet</p><p>(05:41) Who is Lisa and 99VC?</p><p>(09:31) What qualities does Charlotte look for beyond track record?</p><p>(14:55) How does a GP know if they have a differentiated strategy?</p><p>(15:49) Charlotte&#39;s pet peeve</p><p>(17:29) The bottoms up exercise of building a fund strategy</p><p>(18:00) Consistency of execution</p><p>(20:05) The highest level of signal you can get from a founder reference</p><p>(22:18) The ask</p><p>(22:51) Who is better at bowling: Mahesh or David?</p><p>(24:44) Who is Mahesh and Escape Velocity?</p><p>(25:20) Why is Escape Velocity spelled as EV^3?</p><p>(27:10) What happens when you have 30% DPI in the first 2 years of your fund?</p><p>(30:19) Does early DPI matter more in Fund I than Fund III?</p><p>(33:26) Should you sell secondaries at the Series B as a pre-seed/seed GP?</p><p>(37:34) Venture is under siege for no DPI</p><p>(38:18) Would Charlotte rather have 4X in 10 years or 7X in 15 years?</p><p>(39:42) Have&#39;s and have-not&#39;s</p><p>(40:35) Who is Helena and Founder Embassy?</p><p>(44:45) What is Charlotte&#39;s reaction when a pre-seed GP invests in a $400M post valuation?</p><p>(49:23) How do the best GPs communicate betting off-thesis?</p><p>(50:44) How many GPs have an &quot;exceptionalism&quot; bucket to invest out of?</p><p>(55:56) How much underwriting goes into a GP breaking the rules?</p><p>(58:10) &quot;A-players are obvious&quot; but what isn&#39;t?</p><p>(1:00:38) Charlotte&#39;s last piece of advice for LPs</p><p>(1:03:43) Charlotte&#39;s last piece of advice for GPs</p><p>