Last year, a boutique equity manager called me. Twelve months in, solid returns, but wrestling with a decision that was keeping him up at night. “Should I start marketing now, or am I wasting my time without a three-year track record?”
He’d already turned down an industry event, a family office meeting, and an interview with Bloomberg because he felt “too new.” Kept working on investor materials because he still wasn’t happy with them. The classic boutique manager paralysis. He was caught between wanting to grow and feeling like he wasn’t ready yet.
Managers consistently make the same mistake about this choice.
The Timing Trap
Boutique managers believe waiting makes perfect sense. “I need a track record first.” “I don’t want to look desperate.” “Investors won’t take me seriously.”
But staying invisible means giving up the chance to build relationships before they need them. Every month you wait is another month of missed conversations, lost connections, and zero brand recognition.
This goes beyond growth. Nearly half of boutique funds shut down within five years when they can’t achieve the scale needed to keep operations going.
There are investors out there who specifically look for younger managers and emerging funds. They understand the potential upside of getting in early with talented teams. But they can’t invest in what they can’t find. By staying invisible, you’re missing out on the exact investors who might be most interested in backing you now.
At some point, every fund needs to move beyond personal and friends and family capital. The question is whether you want to build those professional relationships gradually or try to create them all at once when you’re ready to scale with third-party marketers.
The “perfect time” myth keeps managers stuck. They think there’s some magical moment when marketing becomes easy, when their track record speaks for itself, and investors start calling them.
What exists instead is a slow build. Relationships that start with casual conversations and grow into serious discussions. Prospects who watch your thinking evolve over time and remember your name when they’re ready to allocate.
How Marketing Changes as You Grow
What matters more than timing is understanding what marketing looks like at each stage.
Pre-launch and Year One: You’re not pitching performance because you don’t have any. You’re sharing your investment philosophy, explaining what problems you solve for investors, building credibility through thought leadership. You’re getting on people’s radars, not trying to get into their portfolios.
Years Two and Three: Now you have some numbers to discuss, but more importantly, you have a story. How did your strategy perform in different market conditions? What did you learn? How are you adjusting? The investors who’ve been following you have context for your results.
Years Three and Beyond: This is when serious allocations happen. But the managers who do well aren’t starting from scratch. They’re strengthening relationships they’ve been building for years.
The mistake many managers make when they do start marketing early? It’s all about them. Their background, their process, their brilliant insights. They forget that investors don’t care about any of that unless it solves a real problem.
Smart early marketing is investor-centric. What keeps your target investors up at night? What gaps exist in their current allocations? How does your approach address those specific issues through digital marketing strategies that actually reach them?
What Allocators Actually Think
Many managers are missing something important. Institutional investors aren’t sitting around waiting for three-year track records to magically appear.
They’re constantly looking for new talent. They go to conferences, read research, talk to their networks. They want to discover managers early, watch them develop, and build relationships over time. The best allocators I know keep tabs on managers they’re watching. Some they’ll never invest with, others they’re waiting for the right moment to back.
The three-year rule isn’t as rigid as managers think. Yes, institutional money typically waits for a longer track record. But getting on someone’s radar early means you’re part of the conversation when they’re ready to move.
Plenty of managers don’t think about this part. Starting over after three years isn’t fun. You’re competing with managers who’ve been part of industry discussions for years. You have to explain who you are, what you do, and why anyone should care. All while trying to convince people you’re not just another late-to-the-party fund manager.
Managers who wait often struggle more than they expect. They assume having good numbers will make marketing easy. Instead, they find themselves cold-calling prospects who’ve never heard of them, trying to compress years of relationship-building into a few meetings.
Back to My Manager
So back to that manager who called me. I coached him through this exact choice.
You’re not choosing between marketing now or later. You’re choosing between being known for something or being invisible. Between having a list of warm prospects or beginning from zero when you finally decide you’re “ready.”
Early marketing is about positioning yourself for when you’re ready to talk to investors. You’ll have warm relationships instead of cold calls. Investors who’ve watched your thinking evolve rather than strangers trying to figure out who you are.
After six months of working together, he’d started sharing monthly market commentaries, joined two industry organizations, and had three serious investor meetings, with one moving toward a potential allocation. Not because of his now eighteen-month track record, but because someone had been reading his insights and wanted to hear more.
He still wasn’t raising capital. But he wasn’t invisible anymore either.
It comes down to this. Do you want to build relationships before you need them, or scramble to create them when time’s running out?
Ask any successful boutique manager and they’ll say the same thing. They wish they’d started building those relationships sooner. The track record gets you in the door, but the relationships are what keep you there.
Don’t Stay Invisible
Are you still debating whether it’s too early to start building investor relationships?
Each month you wait, competitors are getting comfortable with the exact prospects you’ll need to approach when you’re “ready.” They’re building trust while you’re building track record in isolation.
You can book a complimentary strategy session to talk through your specific situation and timeline. We’ll assess where you are now and explore what early relationship-building could look like for your fund.
Dan Sondhelm is the CEO of Sondhelm Partners. He works with boutique asset managers to help them raise AUM, stand out in crowded markets, and create more meaningful conversations with prospects.
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