Hi and Happy Thursday,

Today, we'll be talking about one of the simplest and highest leverage moves you can make as an LP.

We'll start with what goes into the leave-behind - the format I've used and why each one earns its place. Then we'll get into what actually happens in the room when you hand it over: how GPs use it, what it signals, and why the one page most LPs skip is often the most important one for getting access to the managers you most want.

It sounds small. But it might be the difference between getting the access you want and being left on the sidelines.

Before the GP starts their presentation, we go through a short presentation. Four pages. Five if you're generous.

The first page is a quick introduction to who we are - our mandate, our size, how we think about the role of private equity in our portfolio. No paragraphs. No walls of text. Just enough context to anchor the conversation.

The second page is our team. Who we are, what backgrounds we bring, and what that means for how we evaluate managers.

The third page is what we look for in a manager - including ranges. Minimum check size. Target ownership thresholds. Geographic preferences. Strategy tilts. The things that would automatically disqualify a fund before we even get to the qualitative work.

The fourth page is our existing portfolio - current managers, vintages, and a note on our co-investment history and appetite. Doesn't have to be everything (legally you are probably not allowed), but a sub-section will do.

We give them this and spend a few minutes walking through it - page by page. Not a full presentation, more like handing someone a map before a walk. Here's who we are, here's what we're looking for, here's what we've already built.

And then we let them talk.

What happens next is where it gets interesting.

GPs who have done this a thousand times will glance at your portfolio page and almost immediately recalibrate their pitch. They're not reading your investments academically. Instead, they are:

The smart ones will use your existing commitments as a mirror. They'll say something like: "I see you've been in lower-middle market buyout before - we operate at a similar entry point, but what makes us different is..." And now the conversation has texture. It's still a pitch - but it's also a comparison.

You’re no longer hearing a pitch in isolation. You’re hearing a manager position themselves against your existing portfolio.

It also has a subtler effect: it shows that you're a credible reference point. The institutional managers worth backing already know who the serious LPs are. Showing up with a clear picture of who you are signals that you're not a tourist. You're not going to fall in love with a fund in the first meeting and wire money six weeks later. You have a process.

Some LPs take this a step further publicly. The Danish family office Ten-Fifty publishes parts of their portfolio on their website - fund managers, global and local, alongside their direct investment stories.

Any GP who looks them up before a meeting already knows what they're walking into. It's a positioning choice, and it filters the conversation before it even starts.

We also added something I didn't fully appreciate until we'd done it a few dozen times.

We included a page on our process - our gates, our stages, and roughly how many managers survive each one.

On the surface, that sounds like a strange thing to share. Why does the GP need to know about your internal funnel?

The answer is simple: The best managers are not passive recipients of LP interest. They're evaluating you as much as you're evaluating them. And for a highly successful manager who has 5 billion of demand in a fund half the size - who gets inbounded constantly, who can afford to be selective - the most important thing you can offer is predictability.

When you show them that you cast a wide net at the top of your funnel but run a tight, deliberate process from first diligence onward - with clear survival rates at each gate - you're telling them something that carries weight: if we move forward with you, you can count on where you stand.

That is not a small thing for a manager who has been strung along by an LP before - every GP has their own horror stories.

Committed capital doesn't come back. GPs know what a process that drags for eight months and ends in a pass actually costs them - in management attention, in LP expectation management, in opportunity cost. When you show them that your process is clean and predictable, you're removing a tax they didn't know they were willing to pay to work with you.

This matters most for the managers you most want access to.

The funds where you're not a priority - where any commitment is welcome - will sit through the uncertainty. The top-quartile managers with waitlists don't have to. What earns you access in those rooms is not your AUM or your check size. It's whether you look like someone they want to be in business with for ten years.

Your walkthrough is how you show that in five minutes.

There's a version of this that doesn't work. It's the version where you put together the presentation but walk it through apologetically - "we put this together just so you know a bit about us before we get into it." That framing positions the document as a formality, and the GP will treat it like one.

Walk it through with confidence. "Before you start, let me give you the brief introduction to who we are and what we've been building."

Then hand it over.

You've just told the GP something important without saying a word about your reputation: that you think your process is worth understanding.

In a market where most LPs show up vague and reactive, being structured and predictable is a differentiator.

I didn’t hit publish on this piece today.

It's Kristi Himmelfartsdag - Ascension Day. A public holiday in Denmark, and at FundFrame, we're taking it.

Last year, I had that voice. The one that says you could be pushing this forward right now. The to-do list doesn't know what day it is, and neither did I, really.

This year feels different. I've learned - properly learned, not just understood intellectually - that distance from the day-to-day isn't time lost. It's when the global picture comes back into focus. Some of my clearest thinking on product direction or a stuck deal has happened when I'm simply not at my desk.

The Danish calendar builds these pauses in. I'm grateful for that now in a way I wasn't twelve months ago.

Back tomorrow with a clearer head.