Tony Conrad

Partner, True Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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Tony Conrad is a Partner at True Ventures and the Co-Founder and CEO of About.me. Prior to his current roles, he helped back companies like Automattic, Fitbit, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Peloton.

14statements → 5claims → 4claims resolved → 50%fully supported → 3.86/5average certainty → 2.29/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 17said about them ↓

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

3 predictions · 2 assertions · 3 opinions · 4 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 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 Tony 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

Prediction Held up
True Ventures always aims to be the anchor investor
“Our goal at True is always to be the anchor and to have the largest Shareholding in the company at that stage, because we think we're going to be able to impact the DNA of the company in a more profound way and help protect it more effectively.”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 15:17 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Blue Bottle Coffee dumps unsold roasted beans after ten days
“That blue bottle, the beans, we only hold them for 10 days after roasting, and if they don't sell, then we pull them off the shelf and we dump them.”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 5:57 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
0% certainty 4
75% 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? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.6 · coherence 4.9 · precision 4.2 · compression 3.9

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? →

225 words/min while actually speaking · 8.7 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 3,321 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 →

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

Opinion
Party rounds leave founders without a dedicated lead investor
“When you have a two million dollar round and you've got four people at a half million dollars, you really don't have an anchor and you don't really have somebody who's putting a stake in the ground saying, Hey, you know what? I'm going to be there for you and …”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 15:32 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Insight
Single young founders must network in person three nights a week
“You know, if you're single, and you've got flexibility, if you're not out there at least a minimum of three nights a week, then you should go do something different.”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 12:53 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Tony Conrad predicts Blue Bottle Coffee will be a hallmark investment
“Blue bottle coffee is a bit of an atypical one for a tech investor to be doing, but it turns out that this is going to be, you know, one of the hallmark companies in our portfolio.”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 5:18 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Opinion
Tony Conrad disagrees with Peter Fenton on founder unease
“No, not at all. In fact you know, that might work for Peter, and I think each investor, as I've learned even within our firm, has a different approach, and it's really important that you empower somebody to kind of adhere to their kind of instincts, if you wan…”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 7:32 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Prediction Held up
True Ventures always aims to be the anchor investor
“Our goal at True is always to be the anchor and to have the largest Shareholding in the company at that stage, because we think we're going to be able to impact the DNA of the company in a more profound way and help protect it more effectively.”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 15:17 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Opinion
Chasing high valuations is highly detrimental to young founders
“Go get a high valuation. I think it's one of the most detrimental things that happens for these young entrepreneurs. They think it's a game. And the answer is not about just because you can get away with it. You know, you should go get a high valuation. You sh…”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 21:20 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Disclosure
Tony Conrad ignores market trends and is not thesis-driven
“I'm not thesis driven at all. I'm not trying to predict where the market is going or where the next great ideas are.”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 4:07 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Disclosure
Tony Conrad spends disproportionate time analyzing founder motivation
“And I spent probably a disproportionate amount of time, I think maybe more time than any other investor, in digging in on that basic premise for why are they after this?”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 4:32 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Insight
Active founder status gives VCs unique credibility with entrepreneurs
“When you're a venture capitalist and you are also an active founder, it gives you a certain kind of cache and a certain credibility that I think that really resonates with founders”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 10:37 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Insight
Investor and founder social networks remain largely distinct
“Venture capitalists run in certain circles, and entrepreneurs run in different circles, and They do overlap at time, the cocktail parties and things like that, but for the most part, they're pretty distinct”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 11:10 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Insight
Startup founders tend to underpay themselves and burn out
“Founders have a tendency to underpay themselves. They're overstressed. They're overstretched.”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 19:01 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Prediction Held up
Tony Conrad predicts Pluralsight will IPO within several years
“It was acquired by a company called Pluralsight, which is a very large private company that I think is marching towards a public market offering sometime in the next several years.”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 23:17 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Assertion Contradicted
Blue Bottle Coffee dumps unsold roasted beans after ten days
“That blue bottle, the beans, we only hold them for 10 days after roasting, and if they don't sell, then we pull them off the shelf and we dump them.”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 5:57 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
Assertion Partly supported
Teamable founder Laura Bilizarian captained the national women's rugby team
“One of the things I discovered was that she was the national women's rugs rugby team captain.”
Tony Conrad Jun 14, 2017 ▶ 8:27 20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds

The other half of the tape: Tony Conrad's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 17 times in 7 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 11Matt Mullenweg 2Peter Rojas 1Kevin Rose 1John Callaghan 1Jason Calacanis 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
008115220152016201720182019202020212022episodesmentions
01220152016201720182019202020212022episodes it came up in
00316220152016201720182019202020212022episodesmentions per episode
2022 2 mentions in 1 episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
2017 11 mentions in 2 episodes 6 per episode
2015 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Jun 14, 2017 16m
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