What They Don’t Teach You About Being an LP

By Larry Chiang

I pattern recognize.

The best patterns I recognize, I then pattern replicate and pattern iterate. Even though I have an IQ of 188, I break it down for a group of technical co-founders who are slumming it at MIT in the 120-130 range. I’m generous like that.

Here is what I have observed in-the-wild.

Entrepreneurs who are LPs in funds using that funds brand to host and produce round-table lunches where they birth a company that fulfills and need. They then are credited as non-employee cofounders.

Here is an example.

Two dudes blow in from NYC and invite a who’s who of the credit industry for a lunch. They pick some specific topic. Like “cell phone number underwriting”, or ‘FICO score augmentation’ or “starting a 4th credit bureau” or ‘bank charter API instant apps’. They put it on the front side of a credit conference. For example, Finovate and turn it into a cinco de mayo party.

Everyone gets sauced and drops their Rolodex of contacts. It gets the ball rolling

It’s so street smart because they kill 7 birds with one stone – found a team – wedged in the obligation for funding – identified an existing parade – encroached on VC partners and GPs roles by doing the heavy lifting that partners should be doing – mooched expert network – coagulated contacts – created shareholder equity from nothing

Find me pattern replicating this on-the-fly and slapping that up for my undergrad kids under ENGR 145’s Ga Ga Guaranteed exits. Ga Ga Guaranteed exits premiers 2013 in the summer. It’s the sequel to Gua Gua Guacamole. And part of the 100% affiliate program at Stanford University.

It leaked out a little during a cs major dinner with Jerry Cain where an inbound freshman Catalin is doing a ga Ga Guaranteed

CEO of Duck9 Stanford University EIR (Entrepreneur in Residence)

Duck9 = Deep Underground Credit Knowledge 9 125 University Avenue/ 100 Palo Alto CA 94301 http://www.duck9.com/ass 650-566-9600 650-566-9696 (direct) 650-283-8008 (cell)

**************** Editor of the BusinessWeek Channel “What They Don’t Teach at Business School” http://whattheydontteachyouatstanfordbusinessschool.com/blog CNN Video Channel: http://ireport.cnn.com/people/larrychiang

Read my last 10 tweets at http://www.Twitter.com/LarryChiang

Author, NY Times Bestseller http://whattheydontteachyouatstanfordbusinessschool.com/blog/?s=Ny+times+bestseller

“What They Will NEVER Teach You at Stanford Business School” comes out 11-11-12

########## Duck9 is part of UCMS Inc. http://www.ucms.com 630-705-5555