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John Fein

Founder & Managing Partner, Firebrand Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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investorfounderoperator@johnfein ↗LinkedIn ↗firebrandvc.com ↗

John Fein is an early-stage venture capitalist who founded Firebrand Ventures in 2016 to back seed-stage startups outside traditional coastal tech hubs. Prior to launching Firebrand, he served as Managing Director of Techstars Kansas City and spent nearly a decade at OptumRx.

12statements → 7claims → 4claims resolved → 100%fully supported → 3.92/5average certainty → 1.83/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 1said about them ↓

4 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

4 predictions · 3 assertions · 3 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 are 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 John argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Prediction Held up
Fein: The tech boom and inflated startup valuations will inevitably drop
“That trend is not going to last forever. This boom economy is not going to last forever. Everything's cyclical. I've worked through two recessions so far, and you know, it's going to come back down.”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 24:45 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

264 words/min while actually speaking · 1.3 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for John Fein: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 28 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 6,200 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of John Fein is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 0/10
setup questions received 65%

Everything John Fein said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Not checkable as stated
Fein: Pre-seed funding will never be eradicated for non-traditional founders
“I don't think so. I think there's always going to be a place for pre-seed, especially for those founders, maybe first-time founders, maybe founders that are not found in the typical places. I think there is always going to be a place for very early stage round…”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 22:45 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Fein: EQ will separate top VC firms over the next decade
“Totally agree. You know, I think there's a lot to be said for not pretending that you have it all figured out where as an investor, you know your strengths, you know your weaknesses, you know how to say, I don't know, but we're going to get you the answer.”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 31:09 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures
Insight
Fein: Force decisions on fence-sitting LPs because they usually decline
“If they're perpetually on the fence, it's probably going to be a no anyway. And so I would rather just Force the answer.”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 13:18 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures
Insight
Fein: Emerging VCs will not know their true performance for five years
“The feedback loops are very long. You're not going to know how you're doing for at least five years, and you're not going to have someone who's there on a regular basis saying what a great job you're doing”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 20:09 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures
Prediction Held up
Fein: The tech boom and inflated startup valuations will inevitably drop
“That trend is not going to last forever. This boom economy is not going to last forever. Everything's cyclical. I've worked through two recessions so far, and you know, it's going to come back down.”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 24:45 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures
Disclosure
Fein: Early-stage founders should raise 24 months of runway, not 18
“Yeah, I used to suggest 18, and now we say 24, and it's mainly just because of the uncertainty that's out there. With the economy right now, and it's just, you know, better safe than sorry. I think 24 is a safe number”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 25:23 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fein: Firebrand assumes peak ownership is achieved on the first check
“We assume that we won't be able to. So we assume that the ownership we get with our first check is going to be it, and that the best we're going to be able to do after that is to maintain that ownership over time.”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 27:01 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures
Insight
Fein: Dinner is the most valuable step in evaluating founder trust
“The dinner is the most important part to me because it kind of tends to let the guard down. The founder-investor dynamic tends to fade into the background, and you just get to know each other as people. To me, that's the most valuable part of the process, and …”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 29:16 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures
Prediction Held up
Fein: Adding female VCs will increase capital flow to female founders
“And when we get more women on investment teams, more venture capital dollars will flow into female founders.”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 34:07 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures
Assertion Supported
Fein: Firebrand Ventures closed its debut venture fund in eight weeks
“And we went to a first close in about eight weeks.”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 10:02 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures
Assertion Supported
Fein: The average debut venture capital fund takes 17 months to raise
“I think I'd read something in 2016 that the average amount of time it takes to raise a first fund is 17 months.”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 14:12 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures
Disclosure
Firebrand Ventures targets seed startups with $5K to $10K monthly revenue
“So where we play is we like to see some early bit of revenue. So we, even if it's five K a month, we like to see some potential early indicator of product market fit. Maybe there's something that could be here. And of course there's a lot more to it than that,…”
John Fein Oct 7, 2019 ▶ 21:33 20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise, What Is The Right Closing Strategy With LPs & Why We Will Not See The Eradication of Pre-Seed with John Fein, Founder & Managing Partner @ Firebrand Ventures

The other half of the tape: John Fein's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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0112020episodes it came up in
000.50.5112020episodesmentions per episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: The Ultimate Episode For Emerging Managers: How To Determine How Big A Fund To Raise Oct 7, 2019 25m
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