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Brian O'Malley

Founder and Managing Partner, Tactile Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investorfounder@omal ↗LinkedIn ↗tactilevc.com ↗

Brian O'Malley is an early-stage technology investor specializing in consumer internet, online marketplaces, and tech-enabled services. Over a 20-year venture capital career across Battery Ventures, Accel, Forerunner Ventures, and Tactile Ventures, he has backed companies including Dollar Shave Club, HotelTonight, Coupa, Narvar, and Skullcandy.

10statements → 4claims → 1claims resolved → 3.7/5average certainty → 2.1/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 5said about them ↓

0 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 4 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 3 assertions · 1 opinion · 5 insights · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Brian argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.5 · coherence 4.7 · precision 4.2 · compression 4

answered every one of 12 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

243 words/min while actually speaking · 16.1 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 5,393 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host 1/10
setup questions received 75%

Everything Brian O'Malley said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
No startup begins as a platform; platform status must be earned
“The scariest companies are the ones that show up and they say, look, we're a platform. You know, we're going to have, we're going to be this, the center of this ecosystem. And all of these people are going to integrate with us and we can be core to their busin…”
Brian O'Malley May 4, 2016 ▶ 23:58 20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True Customer Retention & Why The Most Interesting Companies Create A Market
Opinion
VCs spending 30 minutes on board prep act naively toward founders
“And that's been something that in the boardroom, you see a lot of venture people show up, you know, spend a half hour looking through the materials and assume that they have all the right answers. Living through the experience I lived through, that just feels …”
Brian O'Malley May 4, 2016 ▶ 6:32 20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True Customer Retention & Why The Most Interesting Companies Create A Market
Insight
Markets featured in Gartner reports are four to eight years too late
“When I say a market, it's less that you've got some Gartner report that shows a magic quadrant that tells you that this market's already great, right? Cause it's a point where that's already published and you're probably four years too late to that market. If …”
Brian O'Malley May 4, 2016 ▶ 21:43 20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True Customer Retention & Why The Most Interesting Companies Create A Market
Insight
Experienced founders are often blind to new market opportunities
“A lot of times people have done it before are the most blind to the opportunity that they're going into because they think it'll be, you know, be easy.”
Brian O'Malley May 4, 2016 ▶ 27:40 20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True Customer Retention & Why The Most Interesting Companies Create A Market
Insight
VCs prefer backing winners at high valuations over discounted average startups
“As long as you're dealing with venture capitalists, they're going to be solving for trying to back the winner. And they would rather back the winner at a much higher price than put something into a company that's maybe doing okay, but not great at a much lower…”
Brian O'Malley May 4, 2016 ▶ 8:44 20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True Customer Retention & Why The Most Interesting Companies Create A Market
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Accel's 2015 portfolio held an average 16 months of cash runway
“At the end of last year, the vast, vast, vast majority of companies had more than 12 months of cash. I think of the 105 active portfolio companies something in the high nineties had more than 12 months of cash with the average being closer to 16.”
Brian O'Malley May 4, 2016 ▶ 9:42 20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True Customer Retention & Why The Most Interesting Companies Create A Market
Insight
Retention is the only exponential variable in startup growth
“Retention is really the only variable that is exponential, right? So if you think about your retention numbers compound every month, right? So the difference between a churn rate of one percent per month, two percent per month, or three percent per month, if y…”
Brian O'Malley May 4, 2016 ▶ 14:53 20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True Customer Retention & Why The Most Interesting Companies Create A Market
Assertion Partly supported
Early Facebook reached 90% college penetration within weeks
“One thing was really unique about Facebook, and it was there from really the early days, and that was the rate at which they got to full penetration in these schools. It would take a couple weeks for them to get 90% plus penetration in a school.”
Brian O'Malley May 4, 2016 ▶ 23:08 20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True Customer Retention & Why The Most Interesting Companies Create A Market
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Home Wi-Fi routers will become the primary smart home platform
“So I think the router has an opportunity to really be that platform over time.”
Brian O'Malley May 4, 2016 ▶ 29:51 20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True Customer Retention & Why The Most Interesting Companies Create A Market
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bow Street's revenue dropped from $25M in Q4 2000 to zero
“I think we closed about twenty five million dollars of new business in Q four, 2000, and everyone was high fiving each other. And then I think Q one, 2001, we kind of goose egged it.”
Brian O'Malley May 4, 2016 ▶ 5:57 20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True Customer Retention & Why The Most Interesting Companies Create A Market

The other half of the tape: Brian O'Malley's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 5 times in 3 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 5

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Accel's Brian O'Malley On The Prioritisation Of Growth, The Metrics That Show True C May 4, 2016 25m
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