Eight months from first contact to money.
Roel Messie runs a hundred million euro fund. He describes his own process end to end, and what surfaces in a founder over that time.
A serious process runs for months, not meetings. Nobody holds a version of themselves together that long, in front of people whose job is to notice.
Memo, clearance, external committee, due diligence, and repeated contact across changing circumstances. His own average from first contact to money is eight months.
What he describes happening in that time is that the picture gets richer, and things surface that were not visible at the start.
In his own words.
Kristina How long does it take, from the first time you meet a founder to the money being in the account?
Roel On average about eight months. There is an investment memo, there is clearance, there is an external committee, there is due diligence. And in between there is contact, again and again, in circumstances that keep changing.
Kristina What happens to your picture of the founder over those months?
Roel After a while your picture gets richer, fuller, and you think, okay, this guy seemed to be great at the start, but now I'm seeing some things that are maybe not that well developed.
An excerpt. The whole conversation is on YouTube and Spotify.
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