Micah Rosenbloom

Managing Partner, Founder Collective · 1 appearance on the record.

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

investorfounderacademic@micahjay1 ↗LinkedIn ↗foundercollective.com ↗

Micah Rosenbloom is a seed-stage venture capitalist at Founder Collective who has led investments in startups including Verkada, Talos, Lovevery, Tropic, and Plated. Before entering venture capital, he co-founded three tech startups—most notably Brontes Technologies (acquired by 3M)—and teaches an elective course on VC at Cornell Tech.

10statements → 1claims → 1claims resolved → 3.9/5average certainty → 2.3/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 31said about them ↓

0 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted how the 1 claim stands · each chip opens the sources

1 assertion · 1 opinion · 5 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertion are the 1 claim: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved. 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 Micah argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: speaking style how? →

245 words/min while actually speaking · 5.4 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Micah Rosenbloom: 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 12 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 4,110 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Micah Rosenbloom 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 ▾ 3/10

pushed back at the host ▾ 1/10

setup questions received 60%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 18:53“I guess I'm asking, does that make you very ownership-centric?” ▶ 17:54“So you wouldn't agree with the Mark Sooster evaluation of ABR, always be raising?”

when Micah pushed back ▶ 16:15“You know, I don't know. I think I would take, uh, I think there's some wisdom there, but I would take some issue with it, which is the twofold.” ▶ 18:12“I don't know if that's always right. I think it's where we are, but I don't think that's necessarily the right thing for all founders.”

What they said10 What others said31 Episodes1

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

Opinion

Mark Suster's 'always be raising' advice distracts founders from execution

“There is a headset that has become the norm, which is always be raising. I don't know if that's always right. I think it's where we are, but I don't think that's necessarily the right thing for all founders. I think it's often very distracting and very, and ma…”

Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 18:00 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

Insight

Managing for Series A metrics makes founders build decks, not companies

“You can become obsessed with what you need to achieve for the next round. And, you know, every board meeting then becomes, well, what are the series A guys want? And you're not really building the business. You're building the deck for the series A.”

Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 16:23 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

Insight

East Coast VCs gain clarity by avoiding Silicon Valley's echo chamber

“I think starting our career on the East coast kept us a little outside the eco, you know, the echo chamber. And I think that did give us some perspective. We weren't around all the VCs every day.”

Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 10:52 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

Insight

Financial modeling for seed startups is a complete waste of time

“There's no model. We're not building discounted flat cash flows or weighted average cost models or black shoals. We're just not doing that stuff. There's not enough data to do it. You'd waste your time.”

Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 13:24 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

Disclosure

Founder Collective will keep its next fund size capped at $75M

“If you keep your fund small enough, which is something that we really believe in, we've kept the fund. The last fund was 75. This, the next fund is 75. We haven't grown it.”

Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 14:48 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

Assertion Partly supported

Idealab was the first startup accelerator, predating Y Combinator

“Ideal lab was the first accelerator pre YC pre, you know, all the, you know, the ones that we see today.”

Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 5:37 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

Insight

The highest-returning venture investments are non-obvious deals that consensus rejects

“It's sort of a core belief that the best investments we've made and the best investments out there were not obvious, and they were the kind of wacky deal in the corner of the room that everybody else sort of passed on”

Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 7:49 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

Disclosure

Founder Collective co-led SkipTheDishes, which sold to Just Eat for $200M

“We ended up, you know, leading the round with golden golden ventures out of Toronto. So I think, you know, they recently sold to Just Eat for, you know, two hundred million Canadian, so we're excited about that.”

Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 9:01 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

Insight

Investing and founder support are the only top priorities in VC

“In venture, investing in helping companies is the only A activity. Everything else is a B activity.”

Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 21:15 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

Disclosure

Rosenbloom's dot-com startup Handshake raised $25M and failed from overcapitalization

“We raised twenty-five million dollars. We had 40 or 50 people. And, you know, the business really just was overcapitalized.”

Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 6:13 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

The other half of the tape: Micah Rosenbloom's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 31 times in 12 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 12 David Frankel 12 Eric Paley 4 Nadia Boujarwah 2 Roger Ehrenberg 1