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Rick Marini

Co-Founder, President & COO, Rails · 1 appearance on the record.

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

founderinvestorexecutiveoperator@rmarini ↗LinkedIn ↗rails.xyz ↗

Rick Marini is an entrepreneur who founded BranchOut, established Protocol Ventures, and served as COO of Grindr. As an early-stage angel investor, he has backed over 50 startups, including Snapchat, Reddit, and AngelList.

15statements → 6claims → 4claims resolved → 75%fully supported → 3.93/5average certainty → 1.93/5average debate potential → 4.5/5argument clarity · the sources → 10said about them ↓

3 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 5 assertions · 1 opinion · 7 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 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 Rick 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
Marini: Silicon Valley turned on Color after its pre-launch $40M Series A
“They raised, like, a forty million dollar Series A, and Silicon Valley turned on them before they even launched.”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 23:32 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow

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

4.5 / 5 directness 4.6 · coherence 4.9 · precision 4.5 · compression 3.9

answered every one of 14 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? →

236 words/min while actually speaking · 34 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 5,209 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 ▾ 0/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 1/10
setup questions received 85%

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

Insight
Marini: Angels must make 30 investments before they know what they're doing
“If you're serious about becoming an angel investor, you're going to need to do probably 30 investments before you really know what you're doing.”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 8:27 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Opinion
Marini: Silicon Valley is far more open and collaborative than Boston
“I'm originally from the Boston area, and anytime somebody wants to talk about their idea, they want you to sign an NDA, and you know, they're really secretive and closed, and when I came to Silicon Valley back in 2000, it was so different. You know, sign NDAs,…”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 7:20 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Insight
Marini: Acqui-hires prioritize employee retention, leaving early investors with pennies
“In an acqui-hire, the acquiring company, they don't care about the investors, right? They only care about retaining the employees. Therefore any kind of cash compensation that's going towards the acquisition is going to be earmarked for the employees, and the …”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 15:05 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Assertion Supported
Marini: Silicon Valley turned on Color after its pre-launch $40M Series A
“They raised, like, a forty million dollar Series A, and Silicon Valley turned on them before they even launched.”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 23:32 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Insight
Marini: Demonstrating pre-investment value motivates founders to include investors
“So for me, I would rather prove out my expertise to an entrepreneur. I would rather contribute to the ecosystem. And hope that they see that value, and instead of cutting me out of a deal, they're more motivated to bring me in.”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 7:31 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Insight
Marini: Angels should review 300 to 600 companies to make 30 investments
“If you're going to do 30 investments, you should probably have a investment rate of, let's say, five to 10%, which means you should see 300 to 600 companies if you're investing at five to five to 10% acceptance rate before you hit 30 companies.”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 9:10 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Assertion Partly supported
Marini: 85% of startups fail
“Most, you know, 85% of startups fail, and you can't say yes every time, or you'll go bankrupt.”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 9:47 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Insight
Marini: Network effect market leaders capture 85% to 90% of sector value
“Often in markets, you'll see the number one company accrue 85 to 90% of the value, and then the next company, especially network effect companies and then the next company might get five or 10%, the number two, and then the long tail shares the last five or 10…”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 12:05 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Assertion Supported
Series A VCs Typically Require 10% to 15% Employee Option Pools
“Typically, the VC is going to require a 10 to 15% option pool for the employees, which makes sense, but usually the angel investor is getting squeezed by that as well.”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 17:21 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Insight
Founders Only Fight for Angels Who Provide Value Beyond Capital
“But the entrepreneur has to go to bat for you. Which means you have to add value along the way. You can't just write a small check and go away and expect that the entrepreneur is going to go to bat with you with a new investor.”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 20:05 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Rick Marini Insists on Single-Digit Million Valuations for Seed Deals
“I've tried to stay disciplined for seed investing. I'm almost always going to be single digit millions for the valuation.”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 21:45 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Insight
Marini: Getting Great Investors Outweighs Optimizing Seed Valuations
“It's far more important for an entrepreneur to get great people around the table, people that can help them raise a series A. People have a certain domain experience and expertise that they can bring. To me, it's far more important to bring people around the t…”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 22:47 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Assertion Supported
Marini: Uber and Lyft valuations perfectly illustrate the 90/10 market value rule
“If you were an angel in Lyft, you're still very happy if they're worth, you know, roughly five billion. But you really want to be an Uber who's worth over sixty billion. Right. And that math actually, you know, kind of works out to that kind of 85, 10, and fiv…”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 12:38 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Marini: Series A partners see 600 to 700 deals yearly, doing 1-2
“A partner in a series A firm typically sees between six and 700 deals a year. And a series A partner typically does one to two deals per year.”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 14:05 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
Disclosure
Rick Marini Strives to Deliver 10x Value Relative to Check Size
“My philosophy is that I want to add 10 X the value of my check. So if I write a 50 K check, I want the entrepreneur to feel like I added 500,000 dollars of value to this company.”
Rick Marini Nov 14, 2016 ▶ 20:17 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow

The other half of the tape: Rick Marini's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 10 times in 6 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 10

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
004284201620172018episodesmentions
024201620172018episodes it came up in
001224201620172018episodesmentions per episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
2017 7 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
2016 2 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investment Nov 14, 2016 23m
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