My LPs Are (Actually) Awesome

Without a ton of data in this week's blog post, I want to share something I’ve recently felt, and did not prior: my syndicate LPs are, on the whole, genuinely awesome people. What I realize is most of the LPs who are happy and continuing to go about their business while evaluating deals are passive… meaning I do not hear from them all that much. This is unlike the ~1% that are problematic and I hear from a bunch. This distorts my general view on LPs.

Just recently, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to many LPs as we look to launch something new, and getting to know them a bit better has really reminded me how great many of these LPs are. 

The Loudest 1% Distorts Everything

Here's the thing about running a syndicate: you almost never hear from the happy LPs. The LP who wrote a small check into a deal, watched it grow quietly for three years, and is perfectly content with how things are going? That person is not in my inbox. They're not sending me messages (for the most part). 

The LPs I hear from disproportionately are the ones with a complaint. Sometimes those complaints are valid, sometimes they're not, but either way they dominate my day-to-day experience of what "being an LP in my syndicate" looks like from my side of the table. And when you multiply that by hundreds of deals over the years, a strange thing happens: the 1% of LPs who generate 99% of the friction start to define, in my own head, what LPs are.

I've caught myself doing this. A tough email comes in, and for a moment I catch myself thinking "ugh, LPs." But that's wildly unfair. It's like judging a dinner party by the one guest who complained about the wine. The other forty people had a great time and said thank you on the way out — but the complaint is what sticks in memory. I’m actually incredibly bad at this. 

Once I named this for what it is — availability bias, basically — I started to see my LP base very differently. And a recent set of conversations has made that shift from an abstract realization into something much more concrete.

Recent LP Conversations Reminded Me

I’ve been talking to a bunch of LPs recently (for something new we're going to be launching soon). These have been real refreshing conversations where I got to learn about who these people are, what they care about, and more on how they think about investing. And I have been genuinely, repeatedly delighted.

A few things have stood out.

The caliber of the people is impressive

The range of LP backgrounds is wild: founders who have built and exited real companies, sitting CEOs, senior engineers at companies everyone has heard of, C-suite operators at tech companies big and small, wealth managers, public and private market investors, family offices, small business owners, and plenty of others I'm probably forgetting. These are people who have generated their wealth in meaningfully different ways — operators who built something, investors who picked well, professionals who climbed and compounded — and every one of them has a story and a domain where they're an expert.

This group feels like a network of specialists who happen to also write checks (which I knew, but was nice to be reminded in this context). 

They are, almost without exception, kind and complimentary

I'll be honest — I was not prepared for how nice LPs have been. Person after person has taken time in these conversations to say genuinely thoughtful things about the syndicate: that they appreciate the quality of deals we surface, that they value the access, that they think we've been doing a good job.

This is not something I need to hear but the emotional dopamine it gives me sure feels nice :)

On one level, it's just nice to hear. Anyone running something would be lying if they said otherwise. But on another level, it's actually signal. People who are warm and gracious in an unprompted one-on-one are usually people who get how this thing works. They're not approaching the relationship as a customer demanding service; they're approaching it as a participant in something they find valuable. That's the kind of LP base I want. The niceness isn't just niceness — it's (hopefully) a tell about how they'll behave when things get bumpy, when a deal goes sideways etc..

They actually understand how syndicates work

This might be the thing I've appreciated the most. These LPs genuinely get it. They understand that a high-volume syndicate is not a traditional venture fund. There's really no “team". There's no dedicated IR function. The reporting is going to be lighter than what they'd get from an institutional fund that charges 2-and-20.

They invest in deals they're genuinely excited about, and they take a passive posture in a way that's not apathy but rather informed acceptance of the structure. At the same time, they're not passive in their thinking. They bring real, considered feedback about what else they'd find valuable, what kinds of deals excite them, what formats or cadences would be useful to them. It's the opposite of the complainer, who tends to misunderstand the structure and then get mad at the syndicate lead for it.

They want to help

This is the one that genuinely surprised me the most. In conversation after conversation, unprompted, LPs have offered to be useful beyond the check. Based on their specific backgrounds, they've volunteered ways they could support portfolio companies — hiring referrals, customer introductions, domain expertise on a specific technical or go-to-market problem, warm intros to people in their network who might be natural partners or acquirers. Some have offered to help source deals; others have offered to be a resource for founders who are navigating a stage they've already been through. None of this is expected of an LP. 

What I'm Taking Away From These Recent LP Interactions

The biggest thing is just a re-calibration. When I step back from the day-to-day inbox and actually look at the population of people who have invested alongside me over the years, it's very positive.

I think there are a couple of practical implications.

The asymmetry of hearing mostly from the unhappy is a structural feature of running anything at scale, and the only real antidote is going out and actively sampling the quiet majority. That's a thing I should make a recurring habit.

The most important, is gratitude. To the LPs who have backed deals, said kind things in conversations, and offered to help — thank you. You are, on the whole, awesome. I'm lucky to work with you, period.

✍️ Written by Zachary and Alex