Rules Of Thumbs

Fund of Funds typically receive a 1% management fee and 5% carry (or carried interest).   Since funds of funds are much more scalable than a direct investment fund, they can charge a lower management fee and carry and make up the difference by quickly deploying the committed capital and raising another fund.  This allows them to quickly amass a large amount of capital under management and thus earn significant management fees.

The General Partnership (GP) of a venture capital fund typically receive to types of fees for their investment services:

• A 20% carried interest.  This means they receive 20% of all of the capital gains on the funds they invest.  Typically they must repay all of the contributed capital or they may be forced to pay this carried interest back to the Limited Partners (LP), this is known as a “claw-back”
• A 2.5% management fee.  This fee is charged on all COMMITTED capital, regardless of whether or not it has been invested yet.

In recent years (following the bubble of the late 90’s) it has taken new ventures an average of 6.5 years to reach a profitable exit via a liquidity event (acquisition or IPO)

Private equity funds (including venture captial funds) are typically structured to be “self-liquidating”.  This means that they dissolve at a pre-determined time, which is typically 10-12 years after its founding.  However, if the fund is not fully invested and/or liquidated by the pre-determined time, the Limited Partners generally grant an extension to the General Partners.

On average start-up new ventures will require $68 million in financing to reach cash flow positive.  This capital is typically raised over 4 rounds.  Once the new venture reaches cash flow positive, in theory, it should be self-sufficient thus not requiring any further investment. 

• When incorporating a new venture, a good rule of thumb is to authorize (or issue) 10 million shares @ 1/10 of cent. 50% of these shares should be issued to the founders (with a vesting schedule). 10% should be set aside for future employees. The remaining 40% will go to future investors.

• Also, ALWAYS elect to “pay” taxes on any shares immediately, even if they will vest over time. This way you will not have to pay any income tax on the difference of the value of the shares at time of receipt and their market value at that time.

A rule of thumb for how much you should have when you retire is to have 20 times your expected expenses in retirement.

A rule of thumb for how much you should save is about 10% of your take-home pay…if you start early enough. If you are over 40 and haven’t accumulated a sizeable nest egg, you should try and increase this amount to 30%. This rule of thumb should help you build an emergency fund, save for a house, etc.

A rule of thumb for how much house you can afford is that you should try and keep the purchase price of the house less than 2.5 times your GROSS annual income. (Good luck in San Francisco, New York, or basically anywhere you’d want to live

A rule of thumb for mortgage payments and mortgage size is that every $200,000 borrowed, your monthly mortgage payment will be $1,000. This rule of thumb is loosely based on a 5% mortgage rate and a 30-year mortgage.