I paid two years of management fee on $50k I'd only funded $19k of

Committed $50k to a hospitality fund with a three-year investment period. The fee was 2% annually on committed capital during the investment period, stepping down to invested capital afterward. I read that line, understood the words, and completely failed to think about what it would do.

The fund deployed slowly. Eighteen months in they'd called $19k of my commitment, two assets out of a target six. The sponsor's explanation was that hotel pricing hadn't adjusted the way they expected and they weren't going to buy at seller expectations, which I actually respect. Meanwhile I paid $1,000 a year on the full $50k. Over two years that's $2,000 of fee against $19k of working capital, which is a bit over 5% a year on money that was actually in the ground.

The worse part is what I did with the undrawn $31k. I kept it liquid in a savings account because capital calls come on ten days' notice and I wasn't going to be the LP who defaults. So $31k sat earning very little while I paid a fee on it, and I passed on a small note participation I'd been working on for months because I couldn't commit the cash.

The deals themselves may well turn out fine. The two assets they did buy look reasonable to me. The drag is real regardless and it's entirely my own doing.

What I'd do differently: ask whether the fee is on committed or invested capital, and if it's on committed, ask for the actual quarter-by-quarter deployment pace of their last two funds rather than the projected schedule in the deck. If a sponsor is disciplined about pricing, and I want them to be, then slow deployment is the likely outcome and I should have priced my own cash for it.