Episode summary
Why LPs Say No Until it's Too Late
How I Invest With David Weisburd
· · 36 min · Hosts: David Weisburd · Guests: Brett Hillard
Summary
Brett Hillard argues that the main bottleneck in alternatives is infrastructure and behavior, not access to products. He describes GLASFunds as an alternatives infrastructure platform serving roughly 150 to 175 advisor firms, with tools that reduce administrative friction through electronic subscriptions, aggregated reporting, and a single K-1 across multiple underlying funds. He says these frictions matter because if K-1 complexity keeps investors out of the asset class, it effectively blocks returns altogether.
He also lays out how wealth managers can build alternatives exposure for clients over time. For a $20 million client, he says a typical portfolio may include hedge funds and diversified private capital funds, with overall alternatives exposure often starting around 10% to 20% rather than institutional-style 40% to 50% allocations. His case is that wealth clients are usually starting from zero, need time to learn the strategies, and should build exposure across vintages to avoid putting too much capital into one year.
Hillard is skeptical of the broad label “alternatives,” preferring to think in terms of specific strategies, liquidity profiles, and return drivers. He says secondaries and private credit are good entry points because they can offer diversification, narrower outcome ranges, quicker cash flows, and a lower J-curve. He also favors first-time funds inside established managers, emphasizing transparency, manager skill, and emotional discipline over brand-name comfort.
Key takeaways
- Brett Hillard says GLASFunds helps advisor firms scale alternatives by reducing friction, including aggregated reporting and a single federal K-1.
- He argues that the biggest barrier in alternatives is often behavior: if complexity keeps investors from getting in, the returns do not matter.
- He thinks wealth clients often should start alternatives exposure around 10% to 20% and build over multiple vintages rather than jump to institutional levels.
- He favors secondaries and private credit as entry points because they can provide diversification, quicker cash flows, and a narrower return spread.
- He prefers first-time funds inside established managers, where he believes incentives are sharper and underwriting can be stronger.
- He says investors should care less about the “alternatives” label and more about specific strategy, liquidity, and return drivers.
Notable quotes
“we exist to help the advisor firms implement their alternative programs in a way that they see fit”
“So, an underlying investor can own 15 different positions and they'll receive a single federal K1”
“the number one rule of investing and the most underrated part of investing is you must be invested in the market”
“Alternatives is an it's a catchall. It what is the term basically says it's alternative to what”
“Investors should target a multi-year time frame. I also think it needs to be reasonable in length”
How the episode opens
So for those unfamiliar, what is glass funds and tell me how it fits into the alternatives ecosystem?
Yeah, so glass funds is an infrastructure an alternatives infrastructure platform. We work uh with about 150 175 advisor firms to help them implement custom alternative platforms in scale. So they can allocate to hedge private capital across you know their plethora of ultra high netw worth uh clients create fully customized portfolios and easily implement that through the glass funds platform with minimal administrative input on their side and we provide a number of efficiencies for them to do this.
You know, for example, it's a onetime subscription document. It's all electronic. And we also provide a number of workflow efficiencies such as a single destination and source of cash flows to a single custodial bank as well as aggregated reporting including aggregated tax reporting.
So, an underlying investor can own 15 different positions and they'll receive a single federal K1. So, we exist to help the advisor firms implement their alternative programs in a way that they see fit. They can fully customize it client by client.
They can allocate the funds programmatically. They can pick and choose their own funds or pick off our list or a mixture of the two.
And this might sound like an esoteric question, but it is something that a lot of people that invest into startups and venture capital funds deal with K1 management. In the early stage venture, you want to have really broad exposure into a lot of different funds and a lot of underlying startups. Is there a solution to solve this K1 issue so that you don't have to deal with 200, 300 K1s in order to get broad exposure?
We think we've effectively solved for that.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- alternatives investing
- k-1 friction
- private credit secondaries
- liquidity and illiquidity
- behavioral finance
Companies and tickers mentioned
- GLASFunds
Watch the episode
Watch “Why LPs Say No Until it's Too Late” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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How I Invest With David Weisburd, this episode and its artwork belong to David Weisburd. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
