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Nav Athwal

Managing Partner, Terra Ag Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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

founderexecutiveinvestoranalyst@navathwal ↗LinkedIn ↗terraagventures.com ↗

Nav Athwal is the founder and former CEO of RealtyShares, a real estate crowdfunding platform that raised hundreds of millions of dollars for property investments. Today, he focuses on agriculture and farmland investments, managing thousands of acres of permanent crops across the American Southwest through Terra Ag Ventures and Tri-Nut Farms.

15statements → 5claims → 3claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 3.93/5average certainty → 2.07/5average debate potential → 4.5/5argument clarity · the sources → 3said about them ↓

2 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 4 assertions · 9 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, and 2 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 Nav 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

Assertion Supported
Union Square Ventures has one of the best performance track records
“Their funds are a little smaller than some of the other bigger firms like Sequoia, but they have one of the best performance track records of any VC.”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 26:10 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares

Their most notable contradicted claim

Prediction Didn’t hold up
RealtyShares will expand into title, escrow, and sales by 2021
“But in the next five years, I can see us tackling other parts of the transaction process from title to escrow to purchase and sale.”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 27:26 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
0% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
none yet 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

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

4.5 / 5 directness 4.9 · coherence 4.8 · precision 4.2 · compression 3.8

answered every one of 16 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? →

252 words/min while actually speaking · 21.4 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 4,947 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 ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host 1/10
setup questions received 45%

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

Insight
Regulated startups must move fast without breaking things to avoid regulatory ruin
“The motto we mentioned here is sort of a play on, on the Facebook motto of move fast and break things. Our motto is move fast without breaking things because, you know, you can't afford to break things when you're regulated.”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 10:34 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Insight
Marketplace startups must solve supply before demand to ensure good user experiences
“You know, I think supply is the area to focus on first, because if you don't have a product for the demand side, that experience Your experience is going to be pretty bad, and your earliest buyers are probably going to be your biggest proponents, and then the …”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 7:11 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Insight
Any startup employee can grow with the company as it scales
“I think as a CEO of realty shares, the kind of position I always take is any employee can grow with the company and it's their sort of job to lose.”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 12:25 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Insight
Founders should hire fast to avoid missing out on strong candidates
“There's a saying that says hire slow and fire fast. You know, I think there's components of that that are true, but really I think there's a lot of times where you should hire fast and not, not hire slow. And I think you know, I think ultimately when you have,…”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 17:03 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Technology has barely changed the core real estate transaction process
“The real estate market again is a very massive market opportunity because there hasn't been a lot of efficiency created within the transactional process itself. There's obviously more access to information because of Zillow and Trulia, but the transaction proc…”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 19:41 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Insight
Series B rounds are difficult because venture capitalists pay premium valuations
“The Series B round naturally is a hard round, right, because, you know, VCs are not investing early where they're getting a great price. They're, you know, typically getting, paying up In a B and that company may or may not have hit an inflection point where t…”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 19:59 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Insight
Founders should begin fundraising well before reaching six months of runway
“Try to get in front of the fundraise. Don't raise when you are on, you know, on a six months of runway, try to raise earlier. Because ultimately you want enough flexibility where if you're not getting the right price for the round, you can go, you can afford t…”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 21:14 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Insight
High valuations during market booms create significant risks for follow-on fundraising rounds
“A lot of companies didn't raise that really high series A valuations or series B valuations because the market was very irrational. And now are having a hard time, you know, raising that next round, you know, because they weren't able to hit the growth metrics…”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 22:20 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Insight
Founders should optimize for investor alignment over slight valuation premiums
“Don't optimize for valuation, optimize for the company and the company that's investing in you and then the board member that's joining your company. And if there's a strong fit there, because ultimately there's not a big difference between what VCs and invest…”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 22:56 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Assertion Supported
Union Square Ventures has one of the best performance track records
“Their funds are a little smaller than some of the other bigger firms like Sequoia, but they have one of the best performance track records of any VC.”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 26:10 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Prediction Didn’t hold up
RealtyShares will expand into title, escrow, and sales by 2021
“But in the next five years, I can see us tackling other parts of the transaction process from title to escrow to purchase and sale.”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 27:26 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Disclosure
RealtyShares real estate investments yielded 8% to 9% or more in 2013
“Back in 2013 when, you know, this exists today where yields were really, really low. So we also benefited from a very low yield environment where a lot of our investments were paying eight, nine percent or more And you were getting half a percent in your bank …”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 4:54 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Assertion Supported
US financial regulations date back to the 1930s and 1940s
“A lot of these laws were passed in the, you know, the thirties and forties when the internet didn't exist.”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 11:02 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Insight
Incubator networks remain valuable to founders through the Series B stage
“So that network really is strong and it's, you know, not only been a value when we were a seed stage company, but has continued to prove valuable as we've shifted to a series B company.”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 14:45 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares
Assertion Not checkable as stated
RealtyShares gives every employee Ben Horowitz's 'Hard Thing About Hard Things'
“That has been a book that every employee at realty shares gets a copy of.”
Nav Athwal Oct 21, 2016 ▶ 23:43 20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In Marketplaces & Why Sometimes You Have To Hire Fast & Fire Fast with Nav Athwal, Founder & CEO @ RealtyShares

The other half of the tape: Nav Athwal's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 1 episode on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 3

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0021312017episodesmentions
0112017episodes it came up in
001.50.5312017episodesmentions per episode
2017 3 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Why Adaptability Is Key To Fundraising, Why Supply Is Always The First Priority In M Oct 21, 2016 21m
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