What Differentiation Actually Looks Like

This week Chris sits down with Jonathan Glick, founder of Incucap and one of the most active fund placement agents in the country. Over his career he's helped place more than $10 billion into real estate funds, and he says raising one has never been harder than it is right now.

There are 600 to 1,000 funds chasing a shrinking pool of capital, real estate has lost a decade of ground to private credit, private equity and everything else, and most managers now spend two years raising a single fund. So his advice to almost everyone who calls wanting to start one is simple. Don't.

They talk about who he'd actually back out of the 300-plus managers he meets a year, why he says most funds run in the red until their third or fourth one, and how the whole business has slid into a fee game, which changes the incentives dramatically.

They get into where he thinks we are in the 18-year real estate cycle, why he believes vacancy is temporary and basis is forever, and the case that the next few years are the best time in over a decade to leave a big firm and build your own platform.

Timestamps
(0:00) Intro
(0:54) Dallas, Talent Wars, and Why Asset Management Became the Hot Hire
(7:12) Too Many Funds Chasing Too Little Capital
(12:16) Why Glick Tells Almost Everyone: Don't Raise a Fund
(16:58) From "Get an A" to "Score 100": Standing Out in a Crowded Market
(25:45) Timing Traps and the Private-Equityization of Real Estate
(37:17) Chasing 20% Returns Again: Rents, Costs, and the 18-Year Cycle
(43:10) Basis Resets, the 401(k) Wave, and the Economics of a Fund
(52:08) Sizing a Fund Right and the First-Timer Discount
(56:33) Fixing Fundraising: Diligence, AI Backlash, and Old-School Wins
(1:05:28) Founder Culture: The Summit, Loneliness, and a New Wave of Spinouts
(1:12:03) Quitting Advice, Creators vs. Catchers, and the Attention Economy

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