On data rooms

We focus on managers with fresh operator backgrounds, and see a lot of the same mistakes over and over. Raising a fund is not the same as raising for a startup. This piece is meant to guide you in how to think about your data room, what matters and what doesn't.

Good data rooms show, rather than tell, your ability to track multiple cap tables, maintain founder relationships at scale, and report accurately on the good, the bad and the ugly with candor and precision. Only three documents matter: a deck, a schedule of investments (SOI), and a bunch of LP letters.

Decks are (mostly) marketing fluff

The best decks answer only one question: what's your clear right to win, and how does it translate into access?

Many first-time managers default to autobiographies. It's understandable. Operators spend years building credibility through experience. But the right partner will have done that homework already, the key question that's not obvious from your LinkedIn profile is: how can this person source and win deals ahead of large platforms?

Lead with a clear thesis. Sourcing model, investment criteria, how you add unique value. Your biography matters as proof of thesis, not as the thesis itself.

SOI is the proof your marketing isn't just fluff

Most managers spend more time on the deck than the SOI. Do the opposite. At the end of the day, LPs are buying a basket of assets, and the SOI best represents that basket.

The most common gap we see is dilution tracking. A company's valuation goes up 10x, you report a 10x markup. But the math tells a different story. Your $100K check at a $5M post-money is now at $50M, but you've been diluted from 2% to 1.2%. Your position is worth $600K, not $1M. Actual value is ownership times valuation, not investment times valuation multiple.

You can count on one hand how many managers actually compute dilution from real share counts across rounds. Most report gross markups and move on. When you track it precisely, you're signaling something: you're in the weeds, you have cap table access, you maintain the relationships that give you that level of detail.

Early-stage portfolios are messy. Companies die, rounds get complicated, information becomes stale. The managers who stand out have systems for tracking it anyway. If you can't properly organize your own portfolio data, managing twenty companies becomes overwhelming fast. The SOI shows whether you have control of the information, whether you seek it, track it, and report it accurately.

Don't be shy about including your angel investments either. Everything tells a story. LPs want to see how your thinking has evolved, whether your current investing style matches what you're pitching for the fund. And make sourcing visible. Where did the deal come from? How did you get access? Why did you make the investment? Context is as important as the valuation

LP Letters show soft power

The LP letter is a relationship proxy. It shows how you stay close to twenty founders simultaneously. The best ones are specific: ownership stakes, competitive dynamics, cap table composition, what's actually happening with the business. They also include a snapshot of the SOI at the top: current ownership, valuations, recent activity. It makes the letter useful as a standalone document.

The weakest read like press releases. Everything is wonderful, everything is great, everything is good. It can't all be good all the time. You can tell when a manager is just copying and pasting from the founder's latest update email. There's no analysis, no context, no point of view on what it all actually means. The letter becomes a forwarding service, that's not what you charge your customers 2/20 for.

There's a tendency to spend LP letters talking about things that don't directly matter: long preambles, general market commentary inspired by the latest twitter feud, personal matters that don't relate to the business or underlying portfolio. Focus on what value are you bringing that makes your founders want to keep you at their table. And stay consistent. Some send ten pages one quarter, two paragraphs the next. There is clear signal in the noise, and it speaks volumes about how you operate.

DO THEIR HOMEWORK

You can learn a lot about a manager before you spend quality time with them, just by how they present their data.

The medium is part of the message. An open link to a raw spreadsheet signals trust. Excel files on DocSend with no look-through formulas or download permissions create unnecessary friction. Don't force your prospect to ask permission for something they already have expressed interest to review in detail. If you're not comfortable sharing your data with a prospect, chances are you're not truly sold on having them as a partner.

Your materials tell a story. Make sure it's the story you want to tell. Most importantly make it easy. Do their homework, no great chef expects their customers to cook their own meal.

In the spirit of this last pearl of wisdom.. we've built a template for the ultimate SOI because it's the document that varies most and matters most. Don't be shy, reach out if you'd like more tips. We are built different at Slice :)