Billion Dollar Backstory

Allocators are drowning in manager emails.

Kristof Gleich would know.

Today, he’s President and CIO of $50B Harbor Capital. Before that, he spent eight years leading manager selection at JPMorgan, fielding pitches from managers trying to break through.
So, he's a good person to listen to when it comes to figuring out how to stand out and win over allocators. 
In this Encore episode of Kristof and Stacy discuss: 
Kristof’s path from physics to finance, how he went from studying physics to landing his first finance job at Goldman Sachs right after 9/11
What actually makes a fund manager stand out (hint: it’s not tweaking a model or slapping “contrarian” on your deck)
Why it pays to celebrate even the smallest wins as you grow your fund 
Harbor Capital’s approach to backing emerging managers early (and why he believes more allocators should follow suit) 

About Kristof Gleich:
Kristof Gleich joined Harbor in 2018 and was appointed CIO of Harbor Capital Advisors in 2020, with oversight of the firm’s investment, distribution, marketing, and executive functions. Before Harbor, he was a managing director and global head of manager selection at JPMorgan Chase. He holds a B.S. in Physics from the University of Bristol and is a CFA charterholder.

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Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus

You didn't sign up to be a marketer. You signed up to manage money.
But the second you start your own boutique? Welp…

Marketing, sales, distribution, hiring... they're all your job now too.

Sean Peche knows that struggle firsthand. 
He's the Founder and Fund Manager at Ranmore Funds, a $650M investment boutique where "that's how it's always been done" isn't really a good enough reason to keep doing something.

And that applies to a lot more than how Sean invests. He's challenged a whole lot of the traditional playbook while building the business too.

So what does building a boutique differently actually look like?
In this Encore episode, Sean breaks it all down.
Listen in to hear:
Why he dedicates one day a week to distribution (and protects the other four for the portfolio)
The LinkedIn prospecting approach he leaned on before he had a marketing team
Why his approach to hiring looks very different from your typical asset manager
How "charitable marketing" lets Ranmore grow its network while doing some good along the way
The mindset shift that happens when you stop thinking like a fund manager and start thinking like a founder
Why honesty and humility might be a bigger competitive advantage than this industry gives them credit for

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Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus

Ten years ago, Andy Raskin wrote a piece called "The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen."
And Stacy Havener is still thinking about it.
Not because you need to build a SaaS deck, but because the structure underneath it works on allocators too.
Too many pitch decks start with some version of: "Let me tell you all about us."

You go into a long spiel about your fund’s process and performance. Meanwhile, the allocator is sitting there with a very reasonable question: "Okay... why should I care?"

That's the gap Stacy digs into in this Story Snack.
Listen in to learn:
What a decade-old SaaS sales deck can teach fund managers about raising capital
Why allocators move faster to avoid pain than to chase upside
How to frame old way vs. new way without accidentally insulting the allocator
Why "better" might not be the word you want, and what to say instead
This is Story Snacks, a bite-sized, jam-packed series for fund managers who are ready to master strategic storytelling in under 20 minutes a week.

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Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus

Most boutiques market the product. Manish Khatta barely mentions his.

Roughly 90% of what Potomac Fund Management puts out has nothing to do with the funds. No performance charts. No fact sheets. Their most successful piece of content is a five-minute video series about fintech gossip that never says the word Potomac.

It sounds backwards. It's also how Potomac went from around $130 million in 2020 to $1.2 billion today, after more than three decades of hovering in the low hundreds of millions.

In this episode, Manish and Stacy get into:
What "eyes on brand" actually means, and why product marketing comes second
The scrappy pandemic video that started it all
 Why he told his team not to measure ROI for two full years
The Eminem clip he was told not to play at a conference, and why he played it anyway
 What happened when Potomac started partnering with its own competitors
Why he's now pivoting back to postcards, suits, and old-school marketing

About Manish Khatta:
Manish Khatta is a quant who has spent his entire career creating and refining technical trading strategies. A lifelong Potomac employee, he programmed the initial work behind Potomac's mechanical trading systems and now runs the firm as CEO and CIO. He's a father of four who leads an RIA built on content and transparency, and he spends his free time playing tennis and being on the water.

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Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus

Should you ever repurpose an old post on LinkedIn?
Short answer: yep.

Slightly more annoying answer: it depends.

Before you copy, paste, and send that post back into the wild, figure out why it flopped the first time. Was it actually a good post the algorithm didn't push out? Or was the post itself a little off? Those are two very different problems.

In this Story Snack, Stacy gets into how she decides which posts deserve another shot, which need a tweak first, and which she'd leave alone.

Listen in to hear:
The one reason NOT to repost that Stacy isn't buying
How to distinguish a reach problem from a writing problem
When a few tweaks will do, and when you need more than that
Why her short Tuesday posts aren't just chopped-down versions of longer ones
What working with the LinkedIn algorithm right now

This is Story Snacks: a bite-sized series for fund managers who want to get better at strategic storytelling in under 20 minutes a week.

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Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus