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Mike Hirschland

Co-Founder and Partner, Resolute Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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

investorfounder@vcmike ↗LinkedIn ↗resolute.vc ↗

Mike Hirshland is a seed-stage venture capitalist who co-founded Resolute Ventures in 2011, backing companies including Opendoor and Automattic. Before establishing Resolute, he served as a general partner at Polaris Venture Partners and founded the startup incubator Dogpatch Labs.

11statements → 1claims → 0claims resolved → 3.91/5average certainty → 2.45/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated →

1 not checkable as stated how the 1 claim stands · each chip opens the sources

1 assertion · 2 opinions · 6 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertion are the 1 claim: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 1 names 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 Mike 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? →

217 words/min while actually speaking · 2.9 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Mike Hirschland: 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 22 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 2,805 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Mike Hirschland 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 ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host 3/10
setup questions received 55%

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

Insight
Seed-stage investor boards are an unnecessary drag on founder time
“And I think too often having a formalized board, an investor led board during the seed stage brings a lot of the trappings of From the post-series A board dynamic into the seed stage, where there's some degree of formality, there's a fair amount of preparation…”
Mike Hirschland Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 16:54 20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures
Opinion
Early seed investing is challenging out of a billion-dollar fund
“The challenge of doing really early stage seed investing out of a billion dollar fund. And a very large platform.”
Mike Hirschland Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 5:43 20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures
Insight
Early startup traction does not predict long-term product-market fit
“But our view is that, that those early signs of traction really are not very telling about whether they're ultimately going to have meaningful traction and product market fit.”
Mike Hirschland Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 8:07 20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures
Disclosure
Resolute Ventures does not consider loss ratio in seed investing
“Quite honestly, we don't think about loss ratio, which I suppose is in some that might be the answer that it's less important to us and is likely going to be higher. Honestly, when those conversations come up with LPs, I tend to be very direct in that we reall…”
Mike Hirschland Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 9:14 20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures
Insight
Sub-$100M seed funds need 4-7 big wins with 10% ownership
“You can only lose one times your money, so, you know, losses are limited, and really, for a seed fund, for a sub-hundred-million-dollar seed fund, if you end up having a handful of companies, four, five, six, seven, that truly are venture-scale returns in the …”
Mike Hirschland Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 9:43 20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures
Insight
True VC support requires direct feedback, not superficial founder-friendliness
“There's a difference between, you know, the phrase that's become tossed about a lot being quote founder friendly on the one hand, which means that you're always going to be yielding to the founder and supporting what they want and want to do versus having, you…”
Mike Hirschland Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 14:48 20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures
Opinion
Very few VCs are actually interested in pre-traction startups
“And too often, everybody says they do all of it, when in fact, they're very Few investors, VCs, who really are interested in pretraction, So I think there's just a lot of confusion in the marketplace in terms of who really wants to invest when and clarity arou…”
Mike Hirschland Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 20:39 20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures
Disclosure
Resolute Ventures prefers investing before startups show early traction
“Our MO, what we really like to do is to be backing teams we fall in love with ideas that we fall in love with, and just that, and so we really do not necessarily look for traction at all. Now, in some instances, when companies approach us, they happen to have …”
Mike Hirschland Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 7:00 20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures
Insight
Founders rush investor selection instead of thoroughly evaluating fit
“I think in many instances, yes. I think founders, with good reason, want a very fast process, and they want to get back to work, and are sometimes inclined, really, just to get the best deal as quickly as they can and get back to work. I would personally advis…”
Mike Hirschland Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 15:31 20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures
Insight
Series A is the right time to form a startup board
“Well, I think it's around the Series A. I think when you're raising a Series A level amount of capital, I think that the investors have an understandable interest In governance and as a company is starting to mature and build out its organization and its manag…”
Mike Hirschland Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 16:26 20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Resolute targets 30 to 35 companies and 10% initial ownership
“Each fund has a portfolio of 30 to 35 companies, and I think we are very consistent in terms of our initial check, which we think is critical in terms of getting to 10% on that first check”
Mike Hirschland Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 12:30 20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Not A Consideration & Why Series A Is The Right Time To Establish A Board with Mike Hirshland, Co-Founder @ Resolute Ventures

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: The Acceptable vs Unacceptable Risks To Take When Seed Investing, Why Loss Ratio Is Mar 18, 2019 13m
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