Origins host Beezer Clarkson sits down with her colleague Laura Thompson, fellow LP and Partner at Sapphire Partners, to unpack her recent conversation with Jessica Archibald, a GP at Top Tier Capital. They discuss Jessica’s engineering-based analytical approach to answering the question “what makes a franchise?” and discuss some surprising things they learned - Jessica’s view that there’s only one real way to do succession, the importance of breaking good and bad news in a way that creates a performance culture, and whether or not they’re going to adopt Jessica’s policy of assigning letter grades to funds at Sapphire Partners.
Learn more about Sapphire Partners: https://sapphireventures.com/sapphire-partners
Learn more about OpenLP: https://openlp.vc
Learn more about Asylum Ventures: https://asylum.vc
Learn more about Top Tier Capital Partners: https://ttcp.com
Read Laura Thompson’s blog on why venture reserves aren’t always a good thing:
sapphireventures.com/blog/dirty-secret-venture-reserves-are-not-always-a-good-thing/
Read Laura Thompson’s blog on fund recycling:
sapphireventures.com/blog/fund-recycling-moves-the-needle-for-both-lps-and-gps-heres-how/
Read Laura Thompson’s blog on QSBS:
sapphireventures.com/blog/how-lps-gps-and-founders-can-leverage-qsbs-to-make-more-money/
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CHAPTERS:
0:00 Intro
1:08 Jessica Takes It In a Different Direction
3:41 Communicating with your LP base (So There Aren’t Surprises)
7:15 Franchise Funds Are Intentional
9:44 Getting to 1x DPI in Nine Years
15:55 2x is the new 3x
19:43 Giving Funds Letter Grades
Origins is produced by Sapphire Ventures in partnership with Pod People.
Nothing presented herein is intended to constitute investment advice, and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire Ventures, LLC (“Sapphire”). Any offer or solicitation of securities by Sapphire may only be made in accordance with the current offering documents for a managed Fund in which Sapphire is an advisor. Additionally, Sapphire does not solicit or make its services available to the public; such offerings may only be provided to accredited investors and qualified purchasers defined within the Securities Act of 1933 and the Investment Company Act of 1940. Information provided reflects Sapphire Ventures’ views as of a particular time. Such views are subject to change at any point and Sapphire Ventures shall not be obligated to provide notice of any change. Due to various risks and uncertainties, actual events, results or the actual experience may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in these statements. While Sapphire Ventures has used reasonable efforts to obtain information from reliable sources, Sapphire makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of third party information presented herein. Nothing presented herein may be relied upon as a guarantee or assurance as to the future success of any particular investment opportunity or strategy. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
