LP Institute Orientation

Welcome to the LP Institute, a program designed for Limited Partners to master the art of investing in emerging manager funds. The LP Institute is a program run by the Decile Group, the leading venture capital platform for next generation managers.

At the core of all of our activities at the Decile Group is the Mensarius Oath, a commitment to ethical investing, fostering positive outcomes for all stakeholders, and contributing to the greater good. We embody the principle of “Give and Help First,” prioritizing collective success over individual gain, and tirelessly work towards making the world a better place.

We believe that ethical venture capital will fund the solutions that humanity needs to address the many challenges that we are facing in the world today. We also believe that these investments will not only make the world a better place, but they will also be more financially successful.

We do things differently, and it works. Welcome.

Attitude & Approach

As a participant in one of our top-rated programs, we recommend the following.

• Stay Positive: Embrace challenges and opportunities with an open heart and a positive mindset. We are all here to learn and make the world a better place.
• Stay in Touch: If you are missing an event or going to be late for a Sprint, let us know by emailing programs@decilegroup.com. If we don’t hear from you, we will assume that you dropped out.
• Learn by Doing: In addition to materials and mentoring, participants are asked to do the various investment activities with real opportunities to gain hands-on experience and learn by doing.
• Complete Sprints: There are Sprints due every week that should take a couple of hours. Do them offline and then load your answers into the FI Portal before the deadline to remain enrolled.

Goals

The LP Institute program has the following goals for participants.

• Do an Emerging Manager Investment: The program will train you to complete an investment with real emerging manager opportunities. The goal is to complete one investment within 12 to 18 months.
• Go through All of the Processes: The program will take you through all of the steps to complete a deal. The goal is to give you a good understanding and inspiration to learn more.
• Meet Like-Minded Investors: The program will group you with other like-minded investors in Working Groups. The goal is to meet co-investors and lifelong friends. 
• Learn Something New: The program includes a mix of beginner, intermediate, and advanced concepts. The goal is for you to learn something new every week.

Activities

The program includes a mixture of mentoring, Sprints, and social Activities. Each week, there is a Topic ordered sequentially with respect to the steps in completing an investment. The weekly Activities include:

• Weekly Mentoring Sessions: On Wednesdays, the program has a top expert on the weekly Topic. The Mentor will normally do an interactive Fireside Chat on the Topic, followed by your questions.
• Weekly Social Sessions: On Tuesdays, the program has a social session for Working Groups to meet and for all of the participants to get to know each other.
• Weekly Sprints: Each week due on Wednesday at 5:00 PM, the program has a Sprint that requires a couple hours of reading, research, and work. Block time during the week for the work.
• Investment and Knowledge Sharing: The program encourages all participants to help one another out with insights, learnings, and deals. Make time outside the Social Sessions to help peers.

Communication

Here are the communication best practices to help you get the most out of the program. 

• Ask Decile Base: Use Decile Base, the venture capital LLM, for instant answers to your questions. If you need more, post the question to the community for expert help.
• Community in Slack: Engage in the LP Institute community and Working Group channels on Slack. During the program, check in daily for updates, discussions, and announcements.
• Be Brutally Honest: The style of the program is to be brutally honest about everything. All participants are encouraged to be brutally honest with each other, as well.
• Contribution Mentality: In our experience, the more you contribute, the more value that you will get from the program. Volunteer to do things. Ask questions. Share on social. 
• Book Office Hours: LPs and other Experts will be making 1-1 office hours available to you throughout the program. Take advantage of these to get direct feedback on your investment analyses and overall approach.

Tools

We provide access to a suite of tools, as well as recommend certain tools.

• FI Portal [Free]: Weekly Sprints are delivered and submitted in the Founder Institute learning management system. You can log in with any link that has ?code= or use the crendentials you used to apply to the program.
• Online Editor: We recommend using an online document or text editor, like Google Docs, to do the weekly Sprints and then load them into the FI Portal.
• Decile Base [Free]: Decile Base is your go-to resource for immediate answers to venture capital questions, powered by AI and expert insights. It is a tool where Quora meets an LLM.
• Slack Community [Free]: Slack messaging workspace specifically for venture capital with dedicated private channels for the LP Institute
• Decile Pro [Free]: Decile Pro is a dashboard and deal system for limited partners to manage venture investments with unified reporting.
• Decile Hub [Free]: Decile Hub is a full-featured venture platform to run all operations of a venture capital firm. For professional limited partners, like fund of funds, Decile Hub will help.
• Chat GPT [Premium]: Certain program activities will be enhanced with a premium subscription to ChatGPT, including due diligence. Select tools will be provided as GPT agents, as well. We recommend you upgrade to ChatGPT Premium for the duration of the program.

Guidelines & Rules

To maintain a productive and respectful learning environment, we encourage everyone to follow the guidelines and rules. If any rules or guidelines are not followed, the participant may be asked to leave the program.

• No Solicitation: Participants are not allowed to solicit investment interest from other participants. Collaborative co-investment is supported and encouraged.
• Avoid General Solicitation: Participants are encouraged to get to know managers for at least one meeting before hearing a pitch for the fund or firm to stop general solicitation.
• Don’t Be Combative: When receiving feedback, including brutally honest feedback, listen, take notes, and learn. Being argumentative, defensive, or combative is not constructive.
• Discretion: Please don’t share things privately or publicly without consent from the parties involved, as this is a private program of trusted participants. 
• Be Your Best Self: You are surrounded by amazing participants from all around the world, and this is an opportunity to shine.

Welcome to a journey of learning, growth, and impact at the LP Institute. Together, let’s harness the power of ethical investing to make a lasting difference in the world.

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