What would be your top advice when fundraising your first search fund? TY!

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January 28, 2020

by a searcher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT Sloan School of Management in New York, NY, USA

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Reply by a searcher
from Harvard University in Omaha, NE, USA
Your natural inclination will be to qualify yourself to investors, which you need to do. But my top advice is that you must also qualify your investors. You’re going to have a financial and professional relationship with them for the next 7-10 years. Fit and alignment matter both ways.

Other consideration
- Be thoughtful on whether you take money from friends and family. Make sure they understand that they could lose that money and can accept that. When you introduce money into a personal relationship, the nature of that relationship will change (most of the time).
- A common question I get from searchers is how much money to budget for travel. I dunno. What does matter is how you think about how to employ travel to further your deal process. Meaning, be able to lay out a clear thinking and execution process for your search to prospective investors. They’re backing you, not your search costs model.
commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from University of Texas at Austin
I would go through the exercise of identifying who your ideal investor is. If you graduated from MIT at the top of your class, then your perfect investor might be someone who just donated $100k+ to MIT. This person is in the life stage of giving back and specifically is showing interest in giving back to the University. You as a top MIT grad are in a good position to capitalize on his current mindset. That's just an example, but being very specific on what type of person is most likely to invest in your fund was very helpful to me.
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