Thirty reference calls. From a single institutional investor. Before writing a check.

Christoph Jost describes this moment without irony. When Flex Capital was raising its first fund in 2019, one institutional LP conducted thirty background checks on him alone. “They almost called my primary school teacher,” he says. And after that investor came in, the rest of the first close happened quickly.

126 million euros for Fund I. A strong early exit that returned more than the entire fund within two years. Then Fund II – 100 million euros – which, by his own account, came together with relative ease.

The gap between those two experiences is not luck. It is three things that first-time fund managers consistently underestimate.

1. A business plan is not a track record

The first and most common mistake: believing that a compelling thesis substitutes for demonstrated performance.

It doesn’t. LPs investing in a first-time fund are operating in a blind pool – they commit capital for ten to twelve years with no deal-by-deal approval rights. The only thing standing between their capital and a decade of uncertainty is their conviction in the team. That conviction cannot be built on a slide deck.

Track record can come from different places. Your own capital, deployed and returned. A carry-bearing role at another fund where you demonstrably drove outcomes. Proprietary deals sourced and closed before the fund exists. What it cannot come from is a well-argued market thesis with no proof of execution behind it.

Christoph and his brother Peter put their entire personal capital into Flex before raising from anyone else. That alignment of interests – not the pitch – was the anchor that made the first institutional conversation possible.

2. You cannot delegate early-stage fundraising to anyone

The second mistake: thinking that a placement agent, an advisor, or a well-connected board member can do the relationship-building for you.

They can open doors. They cannot build trust. And trust is the only thing LPs are actually buying in a first-time fund.

Christoph is direct about this: salesmanship in the early phase is a personal responsibility. You need to understand every objection, internalize every LP’s mandate, and be in the room – or on the call – yourself. The GP who outsources this signals, intentionally or not, that they are not fully committed to the process. LPs notice.

3. Show the pipeline before you have the capital

The third mistake is the subtlest: waiting until the fund is closed before demonstrating what you plan to buy with it.

The core question every LP asks a first-time manager is simple: what does your deal pipeline look like? Not in theory. Right now.

Christoph’s answer in 2019 was concrete. He had already identified targets. He could describe specific companies, specific markets, specific theses – not as hypotheticals but as active conversations. When LPs heard that, they weren’t being asked to trust a strategy. They were being asked to fund deals that were already in motion.

“I would say: I already have the first two or three leads ready. And if you put the money in, these leads are there,” he explains. That combination – full personal commitment, demonstrated dealflow, and a co-investor with deep conviction – is what converted the first institutional check.

The standard is high for a reason

Christoph does not have sympathy for low barriers to entry in fund management. He’s explicit about it: if you raise from institutions that use that capital to pay pensions and fund charitable work, and it goes wrong, you don’t get to walk away clean.

The upside of being a GP is significant. The downside has to be real too. Skin in the game is not a formality – it is the mechanism that keeps the incentives honest.

If you’re thinking about raising your first fund, the bar Christoph describes is not discouraging. It is clarifying. Track record. Personal salesmanship. Pipeline before capital. Get those three right, and the first close becomes possible. Get them wrong, and no amount of market timing or storytelling will compensate.

Heard on DEALMACHER Podcast, Episode 13 with Christoph Jost, Founder & Managing Partner at Flex Capital.