Getting into VC Lab is the starting gun, not the starting line. In this Head Start session, Kelly Schricker of Decile Group, joined by fundraising advisors Boris and Yoan, walks accepted and prospective Cohort 22 managers through exactly how to use the weeks before the program kicks off to close your first LPs. If you're a first-time fund manager who wants signed LPAs and wired capital instead of theory, this session is the playbook.
Watch the full session here:
Start With Your Thesis and Your Confidants
Everything begins with the thesis, the single sentence that tells LPs what you invest in, why you'll overperform, and why you're the right manager to do it. The formula covered in the session runs: your fund name is launching a certain dollar amount of, say, a seed venture fund in your location to back startups in your target country and sector, plus your secret sauce. It's one of the hardest things you'll write, and you'll iterate on it constantly through office hours with the Decile team.
Once you have a working draft, take it to your confidants. These are the people who already know and trust you: friends, family, old bosses, colleagues, mentors, people you've stayed in touch with over the years. Many new managers want to skip straight to institutional investors because a no from a stranger feels safer. The reality, as Kelly explains, is that most institutional LPs can't invest in first-time fund managers at all, and even the ones that can typically won't write your first check. Your confidants are your most likely first believers, so open with them. Ask for feedback on the thesis rather than money, and let the conversations sharpen both your positioning and your pipeline.
One caution runs through the entire session: general solicitation. Depending on how your fund is set up, publicly announcing that you're raising can get you in trouble. Don't pitch strangers, don't post your thesis on LinkedIn, and don't ask anyone for money without a pre-existing relationship.
Why Cold Outreach Won't Close Your First LPs
Asked whether VC Lab teaches cold outreach or makes LP introductions, Boris didn't hedge: "Cold outreach doesn't work, especially in venture capital." You have to build a pre-existing relationship with an LP before they'll commit. That means no purchased email lists, no spray-and-pray LinkedIn messages about your fund.
Instead, the process he describes starts with your background and your deal flow. Talk about what you've done and the exciting opportunities coming your way. Learn how the LP made their money and what they love investing in. Then, roughly 30 days into the relationship as a general rule, you can start sharing more about your thesis and your fund, and work toward a close.
To build that muscle before the cohort, accepted managers can join the LP relationship program that runs prior to the official start date. It includes workshops on how to approach LPs, get them on a call, open the conversation, handle objections, follow up, ask for a commitment, and send LPAs through Decile Hub. The goal is concrete: close your first LPs, get LPAs signed, and ideally reach a first close before the program officially starts in September.
Build a Public Presence Without Breaking the Rules
What if you don't have a public persona or content online? The answer isn't to start posting about your raise. It's to get visibly smart about the industry you plan to invest in. If your fund targets biotech, post about biotech exits and breakout companies. Decile Hub even includes a tool that helps write these posts in a way that's designed to avoid general solicitation. Then watch who likes and comments, reach out to those people privately, and start a real relationship.
Yoan frames this as a two-channel system. The first channel is long-term brand building for your second and third degree connections: webinars, podcasts, and content that showcase your expertise and one or two standout startups in your sector, without ever mentioning that you're raising a fund. When you eventually reach out to someone who's attended your webinars for months, they already believe in your deal flow. The second channel runs in parallel: warming up your first degree connections, the classmates, former colleagues, and alumni you already know, by sharing interesting deals before you ever talk about the fund. As your first degree pipeline thins out, the second and third degree connections you've been cultivating move in to replace them, so you never run out of LPs at the top of the funnel.
And underneath both channels, keep building great deal flow. As Yoan puts it, if you don't have amazing startups to show LPs, they won't convert.
A Content Events Playbook to Close Your First LPs
Boris shared one of the most successful patterns he sees managers run: a short series of content events. Invite your network to a small gathering, then interview one of the founders you're targeting for a potential investment in a fireside chat. You position yourself as the industry expert, the audience gets a genuinely interesting session, and the questions people ask tell you exactly who's interested.
Keep it small. For a first-time manager, 25 to 50 guests is more than enough, because you need enough time to actually meet everyone in the room and understand why they came. Run two of these top-of-funnel events, spaced a couple of weeks apart, then host a third conversion event where you invite only the people who've shown real interest in your thesis and push toward a closing. Done consistently, Boris says, it pays off.
Build Deal Flow Before You Can Write Checks
LPs are your customers, and startups are your product. The session offers several ways to build that product before your fund exists. Offer to mentor or advise at accelerators, incubators, university labs, and coworking hubs. Show up at pitch events and hackathons where founders are building over a weekend, and try to be the first investor they meet. Yoan, who worked at 500 Global, went further: he scraped the entire market for startups on his thesis using tools like Tracxn, PitchBook, and Crunchbase, then cold-messaged founders on LinkedIn. To his surprise, many replied, and after some data cleansing it produced genuinely good deal flow. Cold outreach fails with LPs, but with founders it can work.
One hard rule from Kelly, a former founder herself: never tell a founder you're investing or sign any paperwork until you have your fund and can actually wire the money. "Don't sign any paperwork until you can actually wire and make good on it."
Decile Group also backs this early momentum with real capital. Through catalytic investments from its fund of funds, the team invests up to $10,000 into select Start Funds, giving new managers validation and momentum right as they begin pitching.
Frequently Asked Questions
How big does my team need to be? There's no required size. VC Lab sees successful solo GPs and successful teams. Unlike startups, funds don't have vesting schedules and cliffs to protect against a partner breakup, so don't take on a co-GP unless you've known and worked with them long enough to commit to a 10-plus year relationship.
I'm meeting a family office network this week. How should I run it? Treat the first meeting as a qualification meeting. Understand the LP's archetype, process, and requirements, then work backwards. Offer to reserve a position in your fund using a PACT, the non-binding letter of commitment in Decile Hub, and close them once you have traction to show.
Won't this process take longer than the program? Some LPs will take years, and some may only join fund two or three. But confidants can move fast, and fundraising is a learnable skill. Yoan notes that every cohort for the past four-plus years has produced multiple funds reaching first close within about two months, typically a few hundred thousand dollars to a couple of million, raised mainly from individuals.
Do I need a finance or VC background? No. Decile Group has run the reports, and there's no single background that predicts success. Drive, curiosity, and the resilience to keep going after the nos matter far more.
Get Your Head Start on Cohort 22
VC Lab has helped launch nearly 1,000 funds across roughly 80 countries, and the managers who close your first LPs fastest are the ones who start before day one. VC Lab accepts applications on a rolling basis, and the deadline for Cohort 22 is August 24, with the program kicking off September 16. Once accepted, you unlock one-on-one office hours, the LP relationship program, and the ability to launch a Start Fund quickly, which opens the door to unlimited office hours and potential catalytic investment. Explore the full range of programs, from Venture Institute to Emerging Institute and LP Institute, on the programs overview. Bet on yourself and get the application in.
Watch the full session here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwXI_BMKNqc