🛠️ BUILD OF THE WEEK

A GP I know is raising faster than anyone, with no broker, no family office list, and no warm intros. He runs Facebook ads, and the ads aren't why it works.

Almost every GP I talk to right now tells me nobody's writing checks and you can't raise a dollar in this market.

Then I got on a call with a GP who's raising faster than almost anyone I know, and he's doing it with Facebook ads.

I figured it was a gimmick. It isn't.

He's raising from the person he used to be.

He came out of tech. So do the people he raises from.

He knows what they're sitting on because he sat on it too. Money that showed up fast over the last few years, from equity that vested, a company that sold, or a run-up nobody fully believed. Most of it is still in one stock or one sector, and they're quietly worried about moving some of it before the ground shifts again.

His ad talks about the money the reader already has, and what it feels like to watch it drop 30% in a month. Then it says he came from the same place. The deal comes last.

That's why the ads work. Facebook lets him target by employer and life stage, so a message written for one kind of person reaches that exact person.

Everyone else is pitching real estate, in general, to anyone with money, in general.

It's the same market and the same rates for both of them. He's talking to a specific person about their own money. Everyone else is talking to no one in particular, then wondering why nobody calls back.

I should've seen it sooner, because it's how we built ours.

Before Homebase, my co-founder and I were syndicators. We built a base of 3,500+ investors. Looking back, what made that work was knowing exactly who we were talking to, because we'd been them. The first group we took care of brought in people just like them.

Your first 10 investors know 50 people sitting on the same money with the same worry. Spread yourself across 10 kinds of investors and nobody refers anyone, because none of them know each other.

How to find the one investor you understand.

1. Pick the investor whose situation you've lived. Plenty of people have money. You want the one whose money you understand, and it's usually someone from the world you came from. Ex-tech, a physician, someone who just sold a business, a fellow operator. If you can add 3 true sentences about their situation without stopping to think, you've found them.

2. Say how their money sits today, in one sentence. Where it came from, what it's in, what it costs them to leave it there. A physician's is a brokerage account and a 401k taxed at the top bracket, and none of it earns unless they show up to work. If you can't say it plainly, you're not ready to call them.

3. Say the fear before they do. People move money when where it sits scares them, far more than when a return looks good on paper. The business seller is afraid of losing in a year what took 20 to build. What lands for them is hearing that you'll protect it the way they did.

4. Work one channel until it's full. Ads for the ex-tech investor and the business seller. LinkedIn for operators, where the profile tells you what they sold. Communities for physicians. Referrals once you've paid your first 10. Spread across five channels at 20% each and you reach nobody well.

5. Put your own money in and say the number. "I'm invested too" costs you more than a small real figure ever would. The investor you understand knows what a real number sounds like.

Page 5 is the one I'd read first. It's the fear underneath the money for 4 different investors, and the one line that lands for each. None of them mention a cap rate.

The fastest way in is the Claude prompt at the end.

The worksheet is the real thinking, and it's worth doing by hand. But the last part is a prompt you paste into Claude. The free plan works. It interviews you one question at a time: the world you came from, one real person from that world, where their money came from and what they're worried about, where they spend time, your own money story, and how much of your own money is going in.

Then it writes your investor profile and 4 messages in your voice: the ad or post, the first reply, the email that sends the deal, and the nudge when they go quiet. It takes about 10 minutes.

It follows one rule, and I'd hold you to it either way. If you delete every line about the investor and the message still makes sense, you wrote a pitch. Start over from their money.

If the market feels dead, check who you're talking to.

The GP on Facebook is raising in the same market you are, and he can describe his investor in his sleep. Most GPs I talk to can't. You can fix that in an afternoon with the worksheet.

📋 WHAT'S IN THE PLAYBOOK

13 pages, 8 parts, built from our own 3,500-investor base and that GP's method. Inside:

• 4 investors, worked out. Ex-tech, physicians, business sellers, fellow operators. Where each one's money came from, how it sits, and what it's costing them.

• The fear and the line that lands. One table, one sentence per investor.

• Where they spend time. Ads, LinkedIn, communities, referrals, and which investor each one fits.

• 4 messages you can copy. Written for the ex-tech investor. Swap in your own situation and keep the order: their situation first, your background second, the deal last.

• How the first 10 bring the next 100. Pay on the date you said, send the update even when nothing happened, and ask for one name after the first distribution, not before.

• A one-page worksheet and the Claude prompt. Fill it in by hand, or let Claude interview you and draft it.

Two things I'll say plainly. The worked example is ex-tech because that's the story that started this, so if you came from somewhere else you'll be swapping in your own details. And I'm not sharing that GP's raise numbers. I don't have them verified, and I won't guess.

👉 Get the Investor Avatar Playbook

One more thing.

If the money you understand best sits inside a family office, that's a different playbook. The database is at investors.homebasecre.com, with the decision-makers at each firm and a 7-day free trial.

Want help figuring out who yours is?

Give me 30 minutes. We'll work out who you've actually been, where they spend time, and what to say first. No charge, and I'll tell you if you don't need us.

👉 Get a free strategy session

The gap between GPs who know exactly who they're raising from and everyone else is widening fast.

Pick the side you want to be on.