Happy Thursday!
Now, let’s start with something embarrassing…
I once did desktop screening on a GP.
Solid. Good track record. Strong team. Right in our mandate. At least one we should take a look at.
So I reached out asking for a meeting.
Their response: "Thanks, but we actually met with your colleague five months ago. You decided to pass."
Ouch.
It had been in and out of our Excel pipeline between pipeline_v3 and pipeline_v5. No one had told me. And now I'd just signaled to a GP that our internal process was a mess.
So we decided to fix it.
The Real Cost of "Interesting"
We spent plenty of time analyzing managers.
But we were slower to commit to what a meeting actually meant in practice:
Do we want to see them again this year?
Do we show up onsite?
Are we actively building toward an allocation, or just staying warm?
LPs can analyze managers. That's not the problem.
The problem is translation: you leave with thoughts, but no decision about what happens next.
Forcing the Question
The fix we implemented was simple: within 24 hours of every GP meeting, assign a single letter rating.
A through E. That's it.
A meant "commit to the next fund unless something major changes." E meant "never meeting again." B, C, and D were gradations in between.
Were some managers B+ or realistically B-? Of course.
But here's what forcing a single letter actually did:
It forced honesty about conviction. No hiding behind "let's keep them warm."
It created team-wide consistency. Everyone knew how to behave with an A vs. a C.
It made time a strategic resource. Meetings, trips, and follow-ups followed conviction.
Why this mattered for allocation odds
In private markets, access compounds.
It comes from:
showing up early
showing up repeatedly
showing up before a fundraise is crowded
The letter grade quietly aligned us around that.
A meant: build the relationship even when nothing is happening. B meant: stay close enough to be underwrite-ready. C meant: stay informed, don't spend scarce time.
This wasn't about being harsh.
It was about making sure the managers we believed in actually got our time.
Did we go deeper and grade across a spectrum once the screening process started? Of course.
Did we need to do that 3 years before a fundraise? No, we kept it simple.
What GPs Should Know