**Bridger ** Well, well, well, Lincoln, how the turntables have turned. That's right. Welcome to the show, people. My name is Bridger Painted. I'm your new host for today's episode. I'm actually interviewing Mr. Lincoln Archibald. So Lincoln, welcome to my show today. It's good to have you on as a guest. Thank you for this show. But it should be a fun episode. Actually, Link, you've got a new fund coming out. So we want to hear about your fund. We want to hear about this fund that may or may not win. We'll see. Kind of. I want to hear the thesis, though, that the funds that won is the funds, the funds that won is the show. So let's let's talk about this fund. So give us a a breakdown of this fund, what the thesis is, what you guys are planning to do.

Lincoln Yeah, so we are really excited. We're launching a GP stakes fund. So kind of a unique asset class where the objective is we're going to go out and we're going to acquire minority interest in the management companies of emerging funds. So that's kind of in the simplest form, you know, the objective there.

**Bridger ** So go a little bit deeper for us. So I'm guessing this is stemming from fund launch, lots of students, and you can pick from those funds. I know you guys have been partnering with those funds prior, but this is now the next step of actually an evolution of this, where you're actually doing GP stakes in these funds. So give us a little more context of this, how this kind of came about.

Lincoln Yeah, so over the past couple of years, for those that don't know, we've been a part of a company called Fund Launch, right, where we teach people how to start investment funds. So we primarily started with education, quickly developed more into consulting. And honestly, today we're somewhat of a quasi-service provider where we help incubate new funds. So we've got thousands of emerging managers coming through our ecosystem. And they have various capital needs and various needs in their business as they're taken to the step into the fund management role. And so actually, earlier this year, we started just offering to be more involved with these firms as strategic advisors or board observers, investment committee observers, you know, interim CFOs, just filling sort of different human capital gaps in these emerging funds in exchange, you know, for a rev share in their fund. And it's been great. We've had a lot of firms that have had additional capital needs with us.

**Bridger ** So prior, it's just been consulting. Essentially. Primarily. Consulting, sitting on their board, helping them with, I guess, intangible things. Yep. But now transitioning to where they're actually placing capital with them as well. Yep. Is that correct?

Lincoln Yep. Exactly. So there's a lot of different capital needs that a new fund might have when just starting out. And so, and we want to be able to offer, you know, those capital to fill those gaps.

**Bridger ** Yeah. So stemming from partnering with these, now how many groups have you partnered with so far?

Lincoln We have nine portfolio funds that we partner with.

**Bridger ** Yeah, really cool. Yeah. I don't know if they've copied. You copied my beard. Have the other people copied the beard as well? No one's copied the beard yet. For people that are listening to this, I started quite a trend at the office, apparently. Everyone's picking up beards now. Mason's got a beard. Lincoln's got a beard. Everyone's got beards. I don't know about these portfolio companies. They might have beards soon. We'll see. It was pretty funny.

Lincoln We actually, me and Bridger just went to a conference last week.

**Bridger ** The Greenwich Economic Forum. It was actually really cool. We had Ray Dalio there. Ray Dalio. David Rubenstein.

Lincoln Founder of Carlisle Group. All the big fund managers met with a bunch of pensions, endowments, big family offices. It was a fantastic event. Uh, but, uh, Bridger and I were walking around and we had similar suits and similar beards and similar hair. And everyone's like, what are you, what are you guys brothers? What's we did look really alike.

**Bridger ** I was like, we look like brothers. We're probably long lost cousins. Um, which is pretty fun. Okay. It's like a job. So we were, so you got nine portfolio companies now. Transitioning to now let's place capital, let's help with the startup fees. So an obvious question I think anyone would ask is, okay, you know, Lincoln, why? So you're building a fund that's going to invest into these startup emerging fund managers. These guys have never launched a fund before. Why take a chance on these startup managers? Why not just take your fund and go invest in existing managers on fund four and five? Why are you guys getting into fund one? Like where's the alpha there?

Lincoln Yeah, great question. There's a couple of different ways I think about this. First and foremost is emerging fund managers actually just perform better statistically. They generate higher IRRs for a lot of reasons. One of those main reasons is that they are smaller funds, right? First funds are typically smaller funds. And if you're a smaller fund, you're writing a smaller check. And smaller checks are typically, you know, being allocated into inefficient markets. So and a lot of these emerging fund managers that we're working with, they're coming right out of industry. And so they are bringing industry expertise. You know, they've been working on the trading desk for the past 10 years and they see inefficiencies that their bosses are doing. or that they're doing. Or, they've been syndicating deals. Or, they've been a real estate agent. Or, they've been an independent sponsor. And now, they see inefficiencies in the market, and they want to come and capitalize on them. So, these emerging fund managers, yes, while they're outperforming bigger funds,

**Bridger ** Typically, yes. Statistically. Statistically. So you're saying emerging managers typically outperform bigger funds. Yeah. Very interesting.

Lincoln And another reason for that is product focus, right? When you're a new fund, you're focused on one product, right? If I'm starting a real estate fund, maybe it's multifamily, right? I'm not focused on multifamily, assisted living, commercial, residential, like everything, right? I'm just focused on one product and I'm going to be damn good at managing multifamily and generating alpha. And these big funds, they manage billions in multiple products, so they have split product focus.

**Bridger ** Essentially, it reminds me, I read a report actually recently about this. It was funds over a billion dollars. It's actually hard to place capital when you get to a billion dollar realm, because the deals, the check size, like for a venture capital firm, you have to write a very big check size, which sometimes isn't as efficiently allocated as would a smaller fund. And there's actually this sweet spot in the, you know, for whatever the asset class is from anywhere from like a $20 million fund size, like $300 million fund size, where they actually get the highest returns. Once you get over a billion dollar realm, your returns actually start to diminish because it is just it's just so much capital to deploy. It becomes a lot harder to deploy that capital, which is pretty interesting to your point of emerging managers outperforming big funds.

Lincoln What's the velocity of money concept, right? Like SoftBank raising $100 billion. They now have to go write $5 billion checks. And a lot of times firms don't need $5 billion, right? They just don't.

**Bridger ** If anybody wants to write a check for $5 billion to our firm, that would be great. We'll take it. We'll see how it's spent. for fun launch, but yeah, you're welcome. Okay, but here's the problem with that.

Lincoln Here's the problem. I feel like this is important to talk about because the problem is if we took a $5 billion check, now if we have any additional financing needs or any of our future shareholds, we now have to live up. If they bought a 20% valuation for a $5 billion check, we're now a $25 billion firm. And so we need to generate a $25 billion market cap. But what happens when we're only a $12 billion market cap in a few years? Massive write downs in stocks.

**Bridger ** You see Instacart? Instacart was, I think, $39 billion market cap in 2021. They just IPO'd an $8 billion market cap. Yeah. I mean, like 70% drop from their last private funding ground to now going to the public markets. Yeah. I mean, that's just exactly what you're talking about. It's a good point. So sorry. Back to back to all back to emerging managers. Right. So this is where the alpha comes in. Right. Is these emerging managers is what you're saying. You can come in an early stage. They actually are more focused. They can allocate dollars to more inefficient markets and they can get usually outlandish returns. Do you have any examples? I don't know if you can share, but of the nine portfolio companies currently what are some of the markets they're in? What are the inefficiencies they're finding right now?

Lincoln Yeah, you know, I have a firm out of Texas that is doing distressed pref equity. So there's all these construction, he's been a broker for the past two decades, syndicated a number of deals. But there's all these real estate developers got a little over their skis, right? They didn't raise enough money for their products or they, you know, basically the wells dried up. And they either need to file bankruptcy or they need to get an additional check, some bridge financing, to make it until they can either refi or stabilize. But with rates keep going up, it creates an awesome opportunity for distressed assets. So he is lending or acquiring preferred equity in these different firms.

**Bridger ** Interesting.

Lincoln He's been great. So we, you know, emerging managers, you get pretty unique investment strategies, you know, out of this because. Well, yeah, I mean, they're just really unique markets.

**Bridger ** Well, it sounds like you guys, do you have a certain industry you're targeting with the GP stakes or is industry agnostic?

Lincoln Look, the way we position ourselves is we know funds, right? We know the business of funds really well. Last year, we set up about 130 funds through our programs. We know this business inside and out. And in reality, our strength is the operational efficiencies of systematizing and optimizing everything inside of the firm, right? So that goes from fundraising processes of how to go out and raise money and have a relationship with your investors, systematizing and optimizing features of the firm. So managing a business, right? Governance, managing human capital and making sure you've got a good business running there with insurances and admins and tax, accounting, legal. and then systematizing and optimizing the fund. So your investment strategy. So look, we know the business of funds really well. And while a hedge fund, you know, trading equities and, you know, a buyout private equity firm might appear extremely different. I mean, obviously they do have their differences, but there's the overlap is pretty similar. So we position ourselves as actually industry agnostic where, you know, In a lot of ways, we're betting on the manager a lot more. We're betting on the jockey and not the horses much. So we are looking for really strong operators that have demonstrated an ability to operate efficiently and effectively in the marketplace and can show promise of continuing to do so.

**Bridger ** Yeah, I like it. So give us some numbers. I mean, we're numbers people on here. Give us some numbers, what it looks like if I'm an investor putting money in or not even that, like when you guys write a check to a GP stake fund and help us walk through the difference between a fund of funds and a GP stakes fund. What? Oh, actually, just let's start there. Walk us through that difference. And now let's dive in some numbers of how that translates from, you know, the difference of a fund of funds for a GP stakes with a return from that, you know, portfolio company.

Lincoln Yeah, great question. So a traditional fund of funds is going to go out and they're going to raise money and they're going to raise typically larger amounts of money and they're going to go allocate some of our industry focus. Some are agnostic and they're going to write large checks into different managers and a fund of funds. It's typically there's a Well, let me say this. You're typically writing the check into the limited partnership, right? You're coming in as an investor. You have no forms of discretion. You have no forms of, you know, ability to suede management. You are just an LP, right? A traditional limited partner.

**Bridger ** Now, to keep it simple, for GP stakes, it's a general… And I'll add before you move on, the reason for a fund-to-funds too is a lot of these funds you can't get into. The minimum check size is like $100 million. And so you pool money together, you invest in there. Sometimes you can command a lower management fee, lower pref, and then that's passed on back to the investors of the fund-to-funds. So that's where they get their alpha. That's why you typically will see a fund of funds. That's a multibillion dollar fund. Yeah, they they generally charge a very small management, very small little prepping carry because they're getting double feed. You're getting feed twice as an investor.

Lincoln So, yeah, on the back end. So a typical fund of funds will then go out and try, try and negotiate down.

**Bridger ** Yeah.

Lincoln You know, some management fees so that the investor is have a dual fee burden.

**Bridger ** Yeah. So now that's fund of funds, which is not what you guys are doing. Walk us through now a GP stakes fund. How is that different?

Lincoln A GP stakes firm is where we're going to go acquire interest in the management companies of these firms. So traditionally, the industry started about 20 years ago. GP stakes is a relatively new industry, and it's where, you know, there was either a bad partner or the management companies of these funds had different fiscal needs. And these private equity guys came in and said, hey, well, look, we can we'll buy out, you know, 10 percent, 20 percent, 5 percent of your firm, whatever. We'll give you some capital to either buy out a bad partner or give you some money for the GP commit or give you some growth equity. right, which is, you know, giving a company some capital to grow, you know, a profitable company, some capital to grow. And, you know, we'll come in and we'll participate on the upside as well. So we're essentially coming in as minority partners on these firms alongside the general partners that are in there. And that's the core differences of where the capital is going. So when you look at industry today, GP stakes, you know, they're writing these typically ten hundred million dollar size checks into these behemoth firms, right, that are only managing, you know, north of a billion dollars. Yeah. You know, we try and We only work with firms that are less than a billion dollars. We work with emerging fund managers. And so we will write checks in a variety of ways, primarily into the general partnership as a form of GP commit. As you're growing, for those that don't know, you're expected to you know, a new manager is expected to put up one to 3% of the capital. Pretty easy on the first fund sometimes, but sometimes maybe you spend all your money on getting set up and you don't have that much money to… It can be a lot.

**Bridger ** If you're setting up a $100 million fund, that's $1 to $3 million.

Lincoln Yeah, that the managers are expected to put in. So we can fill that void. And then we can give firms some growth equity, or we can just come in and write a healthy, strong check to get the firm going, right? A common misconception in the firm is that you need billions of dollars to start a fund. We've obviously debunked that over the past couple of years that you can really run a firm effectively, depending on your structure, with as little as a few million bucks. And we like to come in and help managers get bootstrapped.

**Bridger ** Yeah, really cool. So just so I'm clear, your fund will go and buy up pieces of the management company and or the general partner. You'll help with the GP commit. Are you guys also going to write an LP commit dollar? Like will you become an investor, an anchor investor with them? Or is it all going to come through the GP and management company?

Lincoln And so that's where we're kind of somewhat of a quasi, that's where we differ, right, as a GP stakes firm and a, you know, fund of funds, is we have a fiduciary responsibility to protect our investors' capital. And as such, sometimes, depending on the firm, a majority of the check needs to be collateralized by the investment strategy and can't be directly put into the opco to fund startup expenses. So look, we want to protect our investors first and foremost. So it really depends on the deal. But yes, we will function in a variety of ways to ultimately maximize IRR for our investors and simultaneously add the most value to our potential portfolio companies.

**Bridger ** Okay. So that, so I got to summarize that. So the answer is you do both. Yes. And it just depends on the deal. Yes. You'll sometimes do more, but do you, and I, on every deal, do you plan on doing some of the GP and some of the LP just depends on the weights of each deal.

Lincoln It really depends on the deal. Some deals might be a fully, you know, an entire full check. You know, some might just be a full, like for a brand new fund, it might be a full LP check and we'll come in and provide just strategic advisory services on that group.

**Bridger ** Interesting. walk me through what would lower that risk? You mentioned you want to obviously get the best returns for your own investors. What are some of those deciding factors? Like, give me an example.

Lincoln Yeah. A lot of it depends on, you know, traction of the manager. Right. Have they raised any money? Do they have subscription docs signed for any dollars? Where are they at in their fund lifecycle? Right. Because we partner with firms at inception and also more little more established managers that already have you know, five, 10, $50 million subscribed, right? So that can help us predict the cash flows that the general partnership is going to kick off in the future to help us better make that decision.

**Bridger ** Okay. So in a brand new startup fund, you wouldn't want to put as much towards the GP and management company because you want to, you don't pay for startup costs, correct? You'd probably rather write an LP check. That's only going to be dedicated towards if they're investing in real estate towards the real estate. But maybe a more established manager, it might swing the other way. Yeah. Because it's because it's different. OK, that makes sense.

Lincoln So let's say maybe all in we write a check for a million dollars and maybe, you know, we'll divide it up depending on the nature of the deal, where 50 K of that would go to startup expenses, helping the firm. cover any ancillary costs at the beginning. We typically don't like to fund salaries unless we're obviously buying out the stake. So 50K goes in to fund startup costs maybe. And then 450K goes as a form of GP commit to cover that GP commitment. And then remaining 500K goes into the limited partnership.

**Bridger ** So in that sense though, 950,000 is essentially going to the fund where it's gonna be used to be invested. The other 50 grand is just startup costs. That might be how it's split up. Okay, that makes a little more sense. So give me some numbers now on returns. So let's just say, I'm gonna give you a theoretical example. Let's say we got fund one and fund one's doing real estate and it's producing a 15% a year to its investors. Okay, that's the rate of return a normal limited partner would get. Give me, if you can give me some round numbers as a limited partner, if you just wrote a check, you'd get 15% a year. That's how it works. But if you guys come and write a, like that, let's say a million dollar check and a portion goes to GP and the management company, and a portion goes to the limited partner, what kind of return does the fund then generate? Does that make sense? Yeah. So a normal investor would get 15. What do you guys get? Because you've now got GP stakes, you've negotiated a few things. What do you guys get in that example?

Lincoln So, yeah, there's obviously a premium that comes into play, you know, for our LPs that participate in this firm because they're not just participating as traditional limited partners. So traditionally the GP commit portion of it has either reduced fees or no fee, no carry associated with it, which can command anywhere from a, you know, three to 6% premium.

**Bridger ** So right there, that would be, that would take your return from a 15 to maybe a 20 or 21. Yeah, exactly. Right there. Okay.

Lincoln Yep. And then depending on the size of the stake, which will go really any we're minority. We never do majority. We want to leave enough meat on the bone. But again, depending on the role that we're going to fill is anywhere from a three to a 30 percent stake in the firm. So it's kind of a wide buy box there. But, and, you know, again, it has to make sense fiscally to our investors, but, you know, if we grabbed a 15% stake or a 18% stake in the firm, it will, you know, bring that 21% as high up to almost a 30, because now you're participating, our investors, at least, are participating both on a limited partnership basis and on a general partnership income.

**Bridger ** Because you're getting all the other fees from all the other investors as well as a GP. Yep. So interesting. So to just summarize, as a normal investor in the same fund, you'd have gotten a 15. But if you came through linking your fund and as a GP stakes, you would get anywhere from a 21 to a 30% return on the same performance of the fund, just how the deal, how you structured your relationship differently.

Lincoln Which is pretty cool. No guarantee of returns. That's a very hypothetical, theoretical example, but yes, that's kind of the fundamentals of how that works.

**Bridger ** It's good to understand, I think, the metrics of that, because that, to me, it makes a lot of like, oh, that makes sense of why I would invest in your GP stakes fund rather than going directly to all these funds myself. Like, oh, I could just, I can go invest in funds. I invest in funds all the time, but I come to a GP stakes fund. All of a sudden my return goes up a lot based on just the negotiation that you've done with that firm. Now walk me through, that's on the upside. Is there a down, like, is it levered downside or does it insulate risk on the downside?

Lincoln Yeah, we don't leverage. I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, we're investing in two main things. We're investing in the manager's ability to generate alpha, right? And we're investing in the ability for the manager to raise additional capital. Because those are probably the two biggest factors. If the fund doesn't raise any more money, then we're still pretty protected. If the fund has to unwind and there's not enough fees to cover costs, basically we'd only lose the portion that we allocated to startup expenses. And the rest is collateralized by their investment thesis. So insulates risk on the downside pretty effectively there. Additionally, it's the fund manager's ability to perform. And so, yeah, you know, it says in every private placement memorandum out there that, hey, you know, this fund can go to zero, right? You could potentially lose all of your money. So, you know, how we think about that in an effort where we are working with emerging managers, we prefer allocations. And this is why, again, it depends on every deal, but we primarily prefer collateralized cash flowing strategies. So ideally, you know, our perfect fund is either private equity or real estate because there's, you know, fixed collateral there that it's a lot harder for a private equity fund or a real estate fund to go to zero than a levered hedge fund or levered, you know, something like that. You know, we are all about capital preservation and risk mitigation on the downside. And there's a lot of things that we do to protect investor capital. I do want to say, I want to chime in. So as you know, a potential manager listening to this is like, Oh gosh, well, you know, come on. These guys are being sharks here.

**Bridger ** Yeah. I don't want to give up my stake to these guys. Why would I, and I was about to ask all that. Why would I partner with Lincoln? How are you going to get these deals? What is, what's that?

Lincoln Well, look, it's not, you know, we call ourselves fund launch partners because we are first and foremost partners, right, in the firm. We are not just, when we say acquiring interest, we are not acquiring debt equity. We're not going to write a check and then stand on the sidelines, right? That is not what we are about, especially at the emerging manager phase. We want to, I mean, we are vested in your success, right? And we will work with you day in and day out to ensure or, you know, increase every possibility of the fund being successful. And so, again, we'll come in and we'll partner in a variety of ways, as I alluded to earlier, you know, from just strategic strategic advisory work to coming in and really working with every employee that you have in your firm to make sure they're doing their job appropriately and effectively. You know, we really like to look at you know, making sure that the firm, the business has enough current cash flow and future cash flows to support the operational needs of the firm. You know, we look at that very extensively. But yeah, I mean, we're going to come in, we're going to be partners in every way and shape of the word, you know, with these portfolio funds. And that's what we're honestly extremely excited about. So we're not just, you know, investing in these funds for the short term and then taking our chips and leaving. I spoke with a manager last week, he's been trading at Citadel and we were talking about this concept and he's like, well, are you just gonna, what happens at the end of the fund? Are you just gonna take your chips and leave and I'm out of a partner now? And absolutely not, right?

**Bridger ** So we're choosing- You wanna be with them for fund two, fund three, fund five, fund 10.

Lincoln Yes. Like we want to be with these funds, uh, uh, you know, in, in perpetuity and we want to see them succeed and become the next black rocks or black stones. And, uh, you know, we're going to do everything in our power to make that happen.

**Bridger ** So link, talk us through governance. Uh, how do you guys make decisions? How do you work with these portfolio companies? How does your team work with them and plug in? Like walk us through this whole process. If a manager partners with you guys and how you guys make that decisions.

Lincoln Yes. So we have a structured investment committee, as all firms should, in my opinion. So we have an investment committee of five. So I am actually leading out the investments team. I'm the chief investment officer of the firm. So I've got my group, my team of analysts and myself, and we go out and we identify, you know, potential investments. And we, you know, we'll put together an initial two pager. We'll go and we'll do Full diligence on the deal and have conversations with the portfolio firms. We do background checks. We do everything, right? We do full diligence. And then we bring it to a full investment memo to our investment committee of five, where we need to have a super majority vote to move forward on an investment. So that way it brings in, you know, all the other partners of the firm in on the decision-making process. We do have a structured board of advisors and they are, you know, primarily more obvious general advisory. So it's not like a traditional you know, startup where a, you know, they have to go get permissions from the board to do everything. You know, permissions rely within the investment committee, really, to make investment decisions of this firm. And we have general counsel there and general advisory services to make sure, you know, external perspectives to make sure we're doing things right and staying on the path.

**Bridger ** Yeah, I gotcha. Makes sense. Switching gears. Why now? I mean, what do you think about emerging managers right now? I mean, there's interesting, I mean, every day there's a new headline about how the world's ending or something's going on or there's just, it's weird times we've had interest rates. You know all the headlines from the news. It's a very interesting time economically. We were at Greenwich last week where, I mean, a lot of economists are talking about the rise in interest rates right now, the move to private credit, how capital markets are tightening, how the risk-free rate now is essentially five and a half percent. That's pretty hard to beat as a manager. Why like now? Why are you guys getting this space now? And also not just you, but also the funds you're incubating. It's a lot of funds right now. They're a startup that maybe these head ones are going to wipe out or maybe it'll help them flourish. What are your thoughts on that?

Lincoln Look, obviously there's ups and downs in every market, but specifically within private funds, there's actually, and you probably know this more than anyone, but there are so many successful fund managers where they all came out of the bottoms of recessions or depressions. And, you know, it really helps them build a robust business. You know, everyone's a good investor in a bull market. And I think right now, especially, it demonstrates the fact that, look, you know, these managers really know what they're doing. You know, if they can navigate turbulent times like this with high real estate or high interest rate environments, as you said. I mean, when it's low in a low interest rate environment and things are cruising, then it only compounds. It's a compounding effect. But, you know, I truly believe if they can navigate a down market, you can navigate an up market a lot better.

**Bridger ** So you gotta, right now you're watching a lot of these fund managers, as you can see. Another thing we've been looking at is back to the vintage of funds. The vintage year of funds, there's actually a correlation with success of those funds. Usually vintages of down markets. The 2001 funds that launched almost doubled the performance of funds that launched in 2004. From when you look at abroad, they actually, this one study Cambridge University did, they studied hundreds of funds. And vintages from 2001 doubled the performances of 2004 vintages. Funds that were vintage in 2008 and nine, again, almost doubled the performance of vintages of funds in like 2014 or 15. And it's just very interesting as a general sense, the timing of funds. Now, right now we've seen very turbulent times, maybe more to come, maybe not, we'll see. But in my perspective, I think funds that launch in this atmosphere right now, I think will be a very good vintage over the next decade. I mean, time will tell. That's why I'm actually excited about your fund. I think it's a very cool idea, especially right now in the times that we're in. And you get to, not just for your own fund, but you get to watch all these fund managers kind of pick the winners. And that's what I'm assuming you're doing, right? Like you guys have with FundLaunch, we have hundreds of funds that come through and you're picking just a handful of the best and brightest funds that come through that you guys can partner with is just pretty cool. Yeah. Question for you, you know, obviously this is FunLaunch Partners. FunLaunch is a great feeder for, and I'm involved on that side of things, feeding in incredible fund managers all over the world. Are you guys only partnering with FunLaunch members or is it people outside of FunLaunch? And then also a dovetail question is how do people apply or reach out to you to look with you, to partner with you guys and or invest with you guys?

Lincoln Yes. Great question. No, we don't exclusively just partner with firms inside of FundLaunch. While it's an incredible ecosystem and FundLaunch is our primary source of deal flow, I would say, and full disclosure out there. So Bridger, you're actually, Bridger is a minority partner on this firm. He's one of the co-founders of FundLaunch, bringing all these awesome deals to the table.

**Bridger ** Boom, cats out of the bag. There we go.

Lincoln Cats out of the bag.

**Bridger ** So I'm personally excited about this fund. I think it's a cool idea. I think it's awesome.

Lincoln Yes. No, so I gotta give you credit there. You built this awesome company that is kicking off these awesome fund managers, and it's a great opportunity for us to work more intimately with these fund managers as well for all of our LPs.

**Bridger ** How do people partner, find you guys then? So if they're outside of FunLaunch, how do people partner with you or find you?

Lincoln Yes, so no, we don't just work with people inside of FunLaunch. We actually have a number of firms outside already in our pipeline right now. You can just find us online, you know, Fund Launch Partners, bccp.co. There's a couple of different places. Just find me on LinkedIn. But yeah, we're constantly looking for the best and brightest, the next generation of fund managers to empower and support and back and, you know, come in and have skin in the game alongside you guys.

**Bridger ** No, I love it. I think it's I think it's really cool and help take these funds to the next level. Yeah, I think it can be a way for sounds like for these these minority stakes you guys take in these firms that you can come and be an anchor LP and anchor partner, help add legitimacy to the firm, which will help them, hopefully, because, I mean, you're both very incentivized to make sure, like you said before, make sure they raise capital. after the capital contribution you give. So you give a capital contribution, you're incentivized, we need to raise like 10 times the capital we just put in. So you're incentivized to bring investors, bring people to the table, go whatever needs to be done to get more capital in the firm and to get that firm successful. It's kind of cool. So it's kind of like, almost like a, I don't know, an investor on steroids. Like it's an investor partner.

Lincoln I mean, I think it's important to disclose, you know, we're not a placement agent in any way, shape or form or any nature of the word. We are running a fund. And, you know, we are investing via fund into our emerging managers. But yeah, we want the best for them, right? We're going to be alongside you and ensuring a successful launch of the fund.

**Bridger ** So Link, let's turn back to you. We talked about your firm this whole time. Let's talk about you, Link. You're a good guy. We work together. I see you every day. I want to hear from you though. So walk me through, what's some business pet peeves from Link and Archibald?

Lincoln Gosh, when people don't follow through, you know, like if people don't take accountability of their shit, like That will, that just drives me crazy. So I just think it's so important that if people say, you know, partners, employees, anyone says they're going to do something, then just do it. And no babysitting, nothing of that. Just do what you say you're going to do.

**Bridger ** Lincoln cracks a firm whip. He's the, he's a CFO of fund launch as well. So disclosure there, cracks a good whip on the finance team. I like it a lot. Favorite book in business that's maybe changed you or shaped you.

Lincoln Oh, gosh, there's so many. Probably, you know, a foundational one is Anti-Fragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Yeah. You know, talks about risk and in life and black swan events coming in and, you know, how to protect from the inevitable.

**Bridger ** I love that book. Very interesting. And I love the, even just the, have you ever had a book, like the title just kind of shapes you? That's a book where I, for years I never read the book, but just the title of being anti-fragile really changed the way I thought. And I was like, man, how do I make myself, my team, my business anti-fragile? Again, whatever happens in the market happens with things. How do I become, how do I raise kids that are anti-fragile? It's funny, sometimes a book title can be so good that it just makes you think, and that's one of those that I, for years, and then I finally read the book, I was like, I gotta read this book, I've thought about it so much, but I love that whole concept of creating things that are just anti-fragile, that can work in any market or any scenario. Your kids can be anti-fragile, you can be anti-fragile, your spouse, your team, your family, whatever it is, I absolutely love that. Another, I'm gonna say a quote, and I want to get your take on it. This is, I think an interesting concept and I'll frame it as a question though for you. Does someone become powerful and then they earn money or do they earn money and that makes them powerful? What's your take?

Lincoln I think it goes either way, honestly. I don't think it's a I think it's a false choice a little bit there because I think it can happen. And you look at the careers and, you know, in the trajectory of different people, I think money enhances anything you do. And but, you know, you think about a lot of politicians. You know that start out they start on City Council. They go to mayor right they go to You know ultimately make their way to Congress You haven't made a lot of money at that point right you but they don't have power, but you don't have power right, but after that After you've had that experience of, you know, sitting in Congress or a Senate or some influential government position, every board wants you, right? Every business wants you and every, you know, because, you know, you have knowledge, insight and experience that's extremely valuable. Then you make a lot of money. Alternatively, you know, you can be, I mean, I was just, you can be an investment banker that is a grunt associate. You might be making a million dollars a year and you are a slave to the system. And I wouldn't say you're a very powerful individual, you know, by making a few millions, you know. But I think it can, I think it can enhance you. So I think it's, I think it can go either way.

**Bridger ** Examples of both, both ways have done it.

Lincoln Yeah, I think there's a lot of paths to greatness and success, however you define it. Do you think those people that made the money

**Bridger ** were powerful, at least if they didn't have a power position, they didn't hold a, maybe they weren't a congressperson, but they were powerful inside first. Does that make sense? So like that investment banker that was a grunt worker, but like internally, like you look at people like Kobe Bryant. He's like, I knew I would be great. I practiced in silence for years before anyone ever knew my name. So I would consider him as, he was powerful well beyond before he had a power position, But at the same time, I think there's other examples like someone like Bill Gates, you know, Bill Gates. I don't know Bill Gates personally, but they just started this computer company out of out of their garage. I don't think he was a very powerful individual, but then had a lot of money. But then became powerful. But maybe if you're not on it, maybe you read Bill Gates biography. Like, where was he certain from when he was young, like as a power position inside of his own brain, like as a powerful person? I think it's a very interesting concept.

Lincoln It's relative in my opinion, because you bring up an excellent point. I was answering the question purely on a fiscal basis, right? Assuming that money is the driver. I mean, I work in finance.

**Bridger ** I think money is fiscal, but power is a very subjective term.

Lincoln entirely, right? You know, you can be powerful as the Allstate quarterback on a high school team, you know, but you have nothing to your name. You're completely dependent on someone else. But in that realm of, you know, playing football or on that field, you are a powerful being, right? And so I think it all goes back to your sphere of influence around you and what you're measuring yourself against and your associated peer group.

**Bridger ** Um, you know, link, walk us through a decade from now. You know, let's say this GP stakes fund takes off. What are you doing? What's it looking like a decade from now with this fund?

Lincoln Yeah. Great question. Look, I, uh. Obviously, I plan on launching multiple GP stakes funds after this. It's our first product. I expect and am confident in its outcome. As we operate in this space, there's a lot of other unique needs in the emerging fund manager space and just fund manager space. I quickly would love to bring a secondaries product to market. So buying out basically LP or GP positions that need liquidity. I think it's very complimentary to a core, you know, GP stakes product. I'd love to bring a fund to funds product to the market where exclusively we come in as a large anchor LP. to different managers entering the investment management field. I'm really excited. I fully intend on managing hundreds of millions of dollars within the next couple of years. I'm excited to kick these things off and get things into gear.

**Bridger ** I love it. When you walk into a room, you know, you're a two time state champion. You're a concert cellist. Does that give you a huge power frame when you walk into rooms? Like, what's that like? Like walking in and just like, I could play for a symphony right now on cello. And like, nobody knows that, but I could do that.

Lincoln Like, does that reset bridge pulling out the, you know, my old, my old skillset that you guys know on this.

**Bridger ** We're going to pause. I'm sorry, but does that give you a nice power frame when you walk into a room?

Lincoln Uh, no, I think it gives me context and allows me to empathize with, uh, you know, more individuals, the chalice. Look, I think that everyone thinks that, uh, you just grow up and everyone changes and adults are adults. And as terrible as it is, you know, everyone, you're a lot of who you, you know, of who you grew up. Right. And I think that stays with you. Right. Throughout the entire of years. And I think, you know, I did literally everything growing up. I was I worked on a potato farm. I played in the high school play after that. You know, I played on this high school golf team. I played on the football team. I played the cello and the piano. I taught cello and piano growing up. I'm so thankful to my mom who wanted me to be a, you know, a well-rounded individual because I think that, you know, it gave me a lot of context in life. So no, I don't think it gives me power. I think it gives me, I don't think it makes me powerful, but I think it gives, allows me to empathize with more people because I can relate to their interests and their maybe lifestyle a little more.

**Bridger ** Well, I know that all sounds cool. And just for context, Lincoln went to a high school with like 100 kids that went to your high school or something. No. And so you had to be in the play. You were the star of the show on everything. But there's only like a couple dozen kids.

Lincoln No, I mean, yes, it was. It was small. How many people in your graduating class? There was a fair few. What was it like? One hundred and fifty in your graduating class.

**Bridger ** So like the high school was like 400 kids.

Lincoln There's four schools. So there's about 600, 600 kids.

**Bridger ** That's, you know, it's pretty good. In Idaho, on a potato farm. This gives you guys some context about LinkedIn. How many kids are in your family?

Lincoln I'm one of seven.

**Bridger ** One of seven, okay. One of seven. But I will, sorry, I'm making fun. But those are some pretty cool accolades. And Lincoln is a very good cellist, despite all that. Despite. I shouldn't have added that in there, but I'll say it, despite all that. That's just awesome. I think you make a good point, actually. Sorry, all joking aside. How you're raised, though, I think really does affect the rest of your life as much as we like to shake things off. Sometimes people have to rewire their brain from childhood on how money works, how money doesn't work, whether they can be successful or not. And the contrary is true as well. It sounds like you had a great mother that wanted you in a lot of different things, a mom and dad that pushed you into certain things and built this resilience and anti-fragility and toughness and successfulness. Like, I'm going to get things done. Lincoln, you were also a student body president at your high school. Well, let me cut you off. Let's get out of high school.

Lincoln Let's talk about business. Because I think the same is so true for business. Because like somebody wants to be in marketing. If you really want to be good at marketing, I think you need to have a good understanding of business operations. I think you need to understand finances and where those dollars are coming from. I think you need to understand sales and sales psychology. Right. Like, you know, business isn't a one you know, role, one service, one skillset world. I think truly if you want to excel in business or investments, you know, you need to understand everything, you know, and you need to be able to relate with all these different departments, you know, in the business to make, ultimately make the whole ship run.

**Bridger ** But at the same time, coupling that with really deep skills in one area. It's like an interesting dynamic where you have to be versed in everybody else's stuff, but then also get really good at one specific thing, which is a good dynamic of both, which I think is really good. Well, Link, this has been fun. This has been great. I love it. I'm taking over your show today, so I'm going to end it the way I like to end it. This is the way I like to end my shows when I interview people. I give them one last question. Two last questions. If people want to follow you, Link, where do they go? What's the best way to follow you? Come find me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the best place. So if people are LPs, GPs, they want to come talk to you, Linkin Archibald on LinkedIn is the best place to go. Yep. Okay. So go check out Link in there. And then final question. If this was your final interview you ever did, you're going to die tomorrow. This is what you were remembered for. Okay, I'm gonna give you about one minute, minute and a half. You can share whatever you want. It could be religion, politics, business, funds, whatever you want to talk about. Kids, family, I don't care. But you got one, one minute, one and a half minute, you're dying, almost you're dying testimony. One of my favorite things is I like to read like ancient scripture or ancient text. And if you can do this, at least if you're, there's a lot of text to look at, look at the last thing people share before they die. A lot of times people know they're going to die and they'll share one final thing that they believe is most valuable before they die. If you do that, at least it helps me scrum through. There are so many documents to scrum through the final testimony of people. You usually get some really, really cool things. So I'm asking, I'm giving you, I'm talking here to give you some time that I'm putting you on the spot. But if this was your final dying testimony today, what would you say?

Lincoln That is a great question. Wow. Cut me on the spot here. I would probably have to say that, you know, there are a lot of ways to live life. I remember when I was 19 years old, I was in Sweden. I was at dinner with this guy. And I was asking him, I was trying to decide what the heck I wanted to do with my life. And he said, he's like, look, everyone has a suitcase that they can fill up. There are so many things. You have one suitcase in life and you can fill it up with whatever you want. You could fill it up with the jello, right? You could fill it up with sports. You could fill it up with people. You could fill it up with a few close friends. You could fill it up with a million, uh, acquaintances, right? Whatever you want, but everyone has their own suitcase and you, you are the only one that should decide what to do with that suitcase and where to take it. uh, because in reality, like everyone's gonna tell you what they put in their suitcase, right? And they're going to tell you that that's the best way to go. That's the best field to work in. That's the best way to teach, you know, parent. That's the best way to live life. It's the best way to everything, right? But it's all because that's what they put in their suitcase. And, uh, but just fill your own suitcase and take it where you want to go. And it's your life, right? I don't think there's one perfect way to live it. Uh, I think there's, there's not enough time for that. Um, but you know, make the most of it, uh, because it is, it is really short and it goes by quick. So I love that. Be kind of my, my,

**Bridger ** Last thoughts and thoughts to anyone. I like it. Don't, yeah, be intentional. I think too, be intentional about your suitcase as well. Absolutely. Going in there and how you're filling it up and don't be so caught up on someone else's suitcase that it's like, hey, that's theirs. I got mine to fill up. I like that a lot. It's really good. Lincoln Archibald, everybody on the show. Go check out their fund. Go find them on LinkedIn. You guys are amazing and signing off.

Lincoln Thanks, Bridge. Appreciate it.