About this episode

Mike Gelb interviews Tony Conrad about the psychology of great founders and insights from his venture capital experience.

This episode is brought to you by The Hidden Gems. Hiring agencies is risky. Most overpromise and underdeliver. The Hidden Gems connects founders with highly vetted, brand-loved boutique agencies across media, creative, dev/design, events, and more — at preferred rates. Free for Consumer VC listeners → https://thehiddengems.com/ Most venture capitalists have never actually built companies. Tony Conrad did both. In this episode, Mike sits down with Tony Conrad, Partner at True Ventures and one of the earliest investors behind companies like Blue Bottle Coffee, Sweetgreen, Madison Reed, Modern Animal, WordPress and more. Before venture capital, Tony spent a decade at Danone before leaving corporate life to build startups during the earliest days of Silicon Valley’s internet boom. Tony shares what it was really like living through the dot-com crash, why he believes AI is creating another major market correction and the lessons founders keep ignoring when it comes to fundraising, valuations, and building sustainable companies. The conversation goes deep into founder psychology, venture incentives, why most investors get founders wrong and how Tony evaluates companies before there’s…

People in this episode

Host: Mike Gelb

Guest: Tony Conrad

Topics covered

• founder psychology
• venture capital
• fundraising
• company valuations
• investor-founder relationships
• market corrections
• startup building

Keywords

• founders
• venture capital
• AI
• fundraising
• valuations
• storytelling
• market correction
• seed valuations
• investors

Sponsors

The Hidden Gems

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: True Ventures, Blue Bottle Coffee, Sweetgreen, Madison Reed, Modern Animal, WordPress, Danone

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