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Steve Schlafman

Founder & Transition Coach, Downshift · 2 appearances on the record.

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

investorfounderoperator@schlaf ↗LinkedIn ↗schlaf.co ↗

Steve Schlafman coaches founders and executives navigating burnout and career transitions through individual coaching, retreats, and his program Downshift. Before coaching, he spent nearly two decades as an operator and venture capitalist, serving as a Partner at Primary Venture Partners and Principal at RRE Ventures.

12statements → 3claims → 2claims resolved → 4.08/5average certainty → 1.67/5average debate potential → 4.5/5argument clarity · the sources → 10said about them ↓

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

1 prediction · 2 assertions · 2 opinions · 3 insights · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 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 Steve 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
Seed Pre-Money Valuations Typically Range From $3M to $10M
“Generally the valuations are within a tight band. So there's usually anywhere from three to ten million dollars for free money.”
Steve Schlafman Aug 3, 2016 ▶ 7:54 20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Making Process with Steve Schlafman @ RRE Ventures

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet 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

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

4.5 / 5 directness 4.6 · coherence 4.9 · precision 4.4 · compression 4.1

answered every one of 13 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? →

200 words/min while actually speaking · 10.7 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 3,098 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 2 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 1.5/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 1/10
setup questions received 70%

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

Opinion
Schlafman: Alcohol is effectively ethanol and a cellular poison
“Well, yeah, I mean, I think the biggest misconception is that alcohol is, not that it's healthy, obviously there are real severe health effects, but because it's a legal substance, I don't think people recognize that you're effectively ingesting a poison, righ…”
Steve Schlafman Jun 1, 2020 ▶ 21:58 20VC: It's Time To Talk About Drinking; How To Stop, The Impact It Has, How Life Changes Post-Alcohol and The Biggest Misconceptions on Drinking with Ryan Petersen, Founder @ Flexport, Justin Kan, Founder @ Twitch, Matteo Franceschetti, Founder @ Eight
Insight
VCs Cannot Control Companies Post-Investment; Leverage Lies in Selection
“It's very hard to control an investment. I think as an investor The things that we can control is the decisions that we make, right? In terms of the entrepreneurs that we back in the markets that they're going after, right? And that, that are attractive to us.…”
Steve Schlafman Aug 3, 2016 ▶ 12:04 20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Making Process with Steve Schlafman @ RRE Ventures
Disclosure
Schlafman Invested in Zipline After a Single 90-Minute Phone Call
“One of which Remotiv, which is now pivoted into a company called Zipline, that was a pure gut instinct on the founder, Keller, Renato, but that was one where I took an hour, hour and a half phone call, and I'm just like, I absolutely love this guy.”
Steve Schlafman Aug 3, 2016 ▶ 13:46 20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Making Process with Steve Schlafman @ RRE Ventures
Insight
Series A Investing Requires More Operational Commitment Than Seed
“It's been really valuable for me to go from seed investing to more traditional venture investing at the Series A stage, taking board seats, because I like to think it's a much different ballgame, Series A and Series B, and taking board seats and the commitment…”
Steve Schlafman Aug 3, 2016 ▶ 5:57 20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Making Process with Steve Schlafman @ RRE Ventures
Assertion Supported
Seed Pre-Money Valuations Typically Range From $3M to $10M
“Generally the valuations are within a tight band. So there's usually anywhere from three to ten million dollars for free money.”
Steve Schlafman Aug 3, 2016 ▶ 7:54 20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Making Process with Steve Schlafman @ RRE Ventures
Opinion
Giphy Created an Entirely New Market Rather Than Competing
“But in the case of Giphy, there's not a market. It's a brand new market.”
Steve Schlafman Aug 3, 2016 ▶ 18:26 20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Making Process with Steve Schlafman @ RRE Ventures
Insight
Steve Schlafman: Sobriety forced me to be selective about time and relationships
“And what it's allowed me to do is actually be more selective on the things that I say yes to, and the people that I want to spend my time with. And so before, I wouldn't really even care. I would just go to all these events. And now I'm a lot more discerning o…”
Steve Schlafman Jun 1, 2020 ▶ 17:05 20VC: It's Time To Talk About Drinking; How To Stop, The Impact It Has, How Life Changes Post-Alcohol and The Biggest Misconceptions on Drinking with Ryan Petersen, Founder @ Flexport, Justin Kan, Founder @ Twitch, Matteo Franceschetti, Founder @ Eight
Disclosure
RRE Ventures Writes Initial Series A Checks From $2M to $8M
“You know, in our case at RE, the Series A stage, we can put as little as two million all the way up to call it seven or eight for the initial check.”
Steve Schlafman Aug 3, 2016 ▶ 9:13 20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Making Process with Steve Schlafman @ RRE Ventures
Assertion Supported
RRE's $280M Fund Allows Three to Five Seed Deals Per Partner
“Because our fund size is two hundred eighty million, each partner can invest in anywhere from three to five seed deals a year.”
Steve Schlafman Aug 3, 2016 ▶ 15:18 20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Making Process with Steve Schlafman @ RRE Ventures
Disclosure
Schlafman Invested in Managed by Q Despite a Highly Fragmented Market
“I've funded companies in very competitive spaces such as office services, right? There's a lot of cleaning services managed by Q brought a very different offering to that market, but you could argue that it's a fairly competitive and fragmented market, at leas…”
Steve Schlafman Aug 3, 2016 ▶ 17:59 20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Making Process with Steve Schlafman @ RRE Ventures
Disclosure
Schlafman: Quitting alcohol made him significantly more authentically himself
“And I would actually make the argument that since, you know, I decided to stop drinking and cut out other things that I'm way more authentically myself, right? Which goes to why when someone's like, why don't you drink? And I'm pretty open with them is because…”
Steve Schlafman Jun 1, 2020 ▶ 25:57 20VC: It's Time To Talk About Drinking; How To Stop, The Impact It Has, How Life Changes Post-Alcohol and The Biggest Misconceptions on Drinking with Ryan Petersen, Founder @ Flexport, Justin Kan, Founder @ Twitch, Matteo Franceschetti, Founder @ Eight
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Seed VC Performance Requires Five Years to Truly Evaluate
“Yeah, I mean, I think at the seed stage, a lot of it is gut for me. This is a long-term business, so the reality is, is I'll know if I'm any good at this in, in another five years.”
Steve Schlafman Aug 3, 2016 ▶ 13:10 20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Making Process with Steve Schlafman @ RRE Ventures

The other half of the tape: Steve Schlafman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 10 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 10

Every mention by year

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: It's Time To Talk About Drinking; How To Stop, The Impact It Has, How Life Changes P Jun 1, 2020 7m
20VC: From Seed To Series A: The Due Diligence, The Valuations, The Investment Decision Ma Aug 3, 2016 17m
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