An investment firm leader explains their core rule: never pitch a deal to investors they wouldn't fund themselves. They aim to be the largest investor in every transaction, putting their own money at risk. A mentor once warned against being a shit salesman, selling bad deals for quick cash destroys your reputation and career.
Our number one rule at our company is I'm never going to put an investor in a deal that I wouldn't buy myself. And later in our career, as we built our bankroll, like, I wanted to be the biggest investor in any deal that we were doing. I wanted to literally put my money where my mouth is. And if I didn't have a good feeling about my own capital in the deal, then like, I'm not going to pitch that deal to investors. And my mentor always told us, like, you don't want to be a shit salesman, period. You can shear a sheep many times, but you can only skin it once. If you sell shit deals, people will know. You might make a lot of money really quickly, but it's going to be a very short-lived career in the industry.
