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Jon Sakoda

Founding Partner, Decibel Partners · 1 appearance on the record.

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investorfounderexecutive@jonsakoda ↗LinkedIn ↗decibel.vc ↗

Jon Sakoda is the founding partner of Decibel Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm formed in partnership with Cisco. He previously co-founded IMlogic and served as a General Partner at New Enterprise Associates.

10statements → 1claims → 1claims resolved → 3.3/5average certainty → 1.9/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated →

0 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted how the 1 claim stands · each chip opens the sources

1 assertion · 9 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertion are the 1 claim: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved. 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 Jon argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Sakoda: Instant messaging reached 200M users in 18 months
“The messaging went from almost no users to two hundred million users in 18 months. It was at the time the fastest growing communications medium of all time.”
Jon Sakoda Feb 1, 2021 ▶ 2:47 Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage founders

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Jon Sakoda on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Jon Sakoda said on the Neon Show that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Sakoda believes product-market fit requires grinding the product against the market
“I've come to believe that product market fit is really found by taking two rough stones and grinding them together, right? One rough stone is your product. The other rough stone is the market. And If you can't actually find product market fit, you create it by…”
Jon Sakoda Feb 1, 2021 ▶ 7:09 Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage founders
Insight
Sakoda: Customer access is the most critical factor in B2B software
“But in B to B software in particular, access to customers is the most important thing.”
Jon Sakoda Feb 1, 2021 ▶ 11:51 Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage founders
Insight
Sakoda argues venture capital's main playbook over twenty years was bundling
“I think the venture capital industry over the course of the last 20 years went from being very small to being very big, and largely speaking, the most conventional playbook in venture has been to bundle. And I think over the last 20 years, many people have tri…”
Jon Sakoda Feb 1, 2021 ▶ 15:12 Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage founders
Insight
Sakoda advises augmenting struggling founders with executives before replacing the CEO
“And I think more conventionally, the right approach is to just try to get as much help around a founder as possible. And usually the first step is to bring in Management team members or people on the team that augment and bring capabilities or experiences or r…”
Jon Sakoda Feb 1, 2021 ▶ 21:52 Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage founders
Insight
Sakoda: Founders with coaching outperform those without it
“I think if you know, have great coaching and have great mentorship and have great advice similar to say a performance athlete, you're just going to do better than somebody who doesn't have that.”
Jon Sakoda Feb 1, 2021 ▶ 25:51 Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage founders
Insight
Sakoda says founder coaching unlocks performance limitations rather than driving accountability
“I think it has more to do with performance and that's not, not accountability. It's really about trying to unlock The limitations that perhaps you have in making the most out of your day and your time and your goals.”
Jon Sakoda Feb 1, 2021 ▶ 29:00 Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage founders
Insight
Sakoda says coaches are needed when fear of failure impedes execution
“I, I'm sure every founder goes to bed at night imagining the way that their company can thrive, but also wakes up in the middle of the night imagining ways that their companies can die. And that's just natural, but sometimes that also gets in the way of work a…”
Jon Sakoda Feb 1, 2021 ▶ 29:53 Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage founders
Insight
Sakoda: Advisors answer discrete questions efficiently, coaches navigate continuous personal journeys
“Advisors tend to be able to answer questions with efficiency and coaches tend to be able to walk you through what sometimes is a more continuous journey that has you know different paths that you need to navigate and requires a little bit more intimacy than yo…”
Jon Sakoda Feb 1, 2021 ▶ 32:10 Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage founders
Insight
Sakoda identifies rapid iteration capacity as a leading startup success indicator
“When I see a group that is capable of rapidly iterating and improving, I like their odds because I feel like that, that trajectory is hard to stop.”
Jon Sakoda Feb 1, 2021 ▶ 38:55 Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage founders
Assertion Contradicted
Sakoda: Instant messaging reached 200M users in 18 months
“The messaging went from almost no users to two hundred million users in 18 months. It was at the time the fastest growing communications medium of all time.”
Jon Sakoda Feb 1, 2021 ▶ 2:47 Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage founders

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Jon Sakoda, Founder, Decibel Partners on importance of having a coach for early-stage foun Feb 1, 2021 29m
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