20VC: Tony Conrad on Straddling The Role Of Founder & Investor, What True Founder/Product Fit Looks Like & The Dangers of Party Rounds
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 14 June 2017
⏱️ 26 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tony Conrad is a Partner @ True Ventures, one of the leading early stage funds on the West Coast with a portfolio including the likes of Automattic, Fitbit, Blue Bottle Coffee and recent unicorn, Peloton. Tony is also the Co-Founder & CEO @ About.me (acquired by AOL in 2010). They have since raised funding from some of our favorites in the industry including Brad @ Foundry, SoftTech and BullPen just to name a few. Prior to About.me, Tony founded Sphere (acquired by AOL) in 2008.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Tony made his way from founding About.me to moving into VC with True Ventures?
2.) How has Tony's investment mentality changed since being an incredibly successful angel to now writing institutional cheques with True? What has he learned about investing from the transition?
3.) Why does Tony look to straddle the divide between investor and founder? How does this help him to examine what true product/founder fit is? How does this affect his ability to source deals? Why should more investors look to do the same?
4.) How does Tony view party rounds/ why are they so dangerous? Why is it so wrong for founders to optimize for valuation? What are the later repercussions of doing so? What is a more effective way for founders to approach the raise?
5.) Having spent over 1,500 minutes in board meetings, what has Tony learned about what makes the beat board members? How can founders detect the board member that is truly aligned to them?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Tony’s Fave Book: Endurance by Shackleton
Tony’s Most Recent Investment: TeamableÂ
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Tony on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 20 minute VC with me, your host, Harry Stebbings, and you can connect with me on Snapchat |
| 0:04.4 | at H. Stebbings with two Bs. I answer all questions and comments and would love to see you there. |
| 0:09.0 | But to the show today, and sometimes you just have a natural chemistry with a guest, and this guest |
| 0:13.2 | certainly falls into that bracket. I'm not sure if it was the love of startups or mixology, |
| 0:17.6 | but certainly some chemistry in the show. So, joining me in the hot seat today, |
| 0:25.6 | we have Tony Conrad. Now, Tony is a partner at True Ventures, one of the leading early stage funds on the West Coast, with a portfolio including the lights of Automatic, the makers of WordPress, |
| 0:30.3 | Fitbit, Blue Bottle Coffee, and recent Unicorn Peloton. Tony's also the co-founder and CEO at |
| 0:35.7 | About.Me, acquired by AOL in 2010, and they've since raised funding from some of our true favourists in the industry, including Brad at Foundry, SoftTech and Bullpen, just to name a few. |
| 0:45.7 | Prior to About.comme, Tony founded Sphere, again acquired by AOL in 2008, and I do also want to say a big thank you to Phil Black at True for making the intro to Tony |
| 0:54.3 | State without which this episode would not have been possible. |
| 0:57.1 | But before we head into the episode today, a lot of people ask me, Harry, you do so many calls |
| 1:01.4 | and interviews, but what do you use? |
| 1:03.4 | My response? |
| 1:04.4 | Zoom. |
| 1:05.0 | The number one video and web conferencing service providing one consistent enterprise experience |
| 1:09.6 | that allows you to an array of |
| 1:11.1 | activities, including online meetings, video webinars, collaboration enabled conference rooms, |
| 1:16.5 | and business I am, just to name a few. And it's the easiest solution to use, buy, and scale, |
| 1:21.3 | and for sure the most straightforward pricing. But hey, don't take my word for it. Their |
| 1:25.4 | partnership with Sequoia and their latest 100 million funding around says it all. |
| 1:29.1 | Zoom really is a must checkout for your business. |
| 1:31.2 | I cannot emphasize that enough. |
... |
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