True Talk Los Angeles: Unfiltered Insights on the Ups and Downs of the Founder Journey

As a team, we’re constantly thinking about how we can both support and better connect our community of founders while expanding our reach to meet new and interesting people. 

In that spirit, we kicked off True Talks, a new event series open to all entrepreneurs and creators building the companies and projects of tomorrow. The event was open to the public with the intent to connect our investment team with founders building across emerging industries, meeting more entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds, and welcoming founders from all regions into our network. 

We held True Talk: LA in West Hollywood on a sunny Wednesday afternoon. The day was headlined with a conversation between True EIR and investor Clarence Bethea, True Managing Partner Puneet Agarwal, and Tara Raffi, the founder of True-backed obgyn disruptor Almond.   

One of the key focuses of their conversation was how to eliminate fear and embrace failure. (Easier said than done, right?) Fortunately for our community, we hold space for candid, honest conversations that don’t glaze over the tough moments all startup founders face. Tara shared her approach to digesting negative feedback during the fundraising process and how she used it as fuel to improve at telling her story.

While Tara held space for humanity in the room, Puneet and Clarence offered their take on the importance of high-EQ founder-investor partnerships and what to look for in investors to ensure they’re the right fit. Audience questions spanned the fundraising process, how to bounce back from investor turndowns, and even how to gauge what investor feedback to take (and leave on the table).

We thank all the True Founders in attendance as well as all the new True Friends who joined us and met our team for the first time. We’ll be sharing city locations and registration forms for future True Talks in various other cities soon. Sign up for the True Ventures newsletter to be invited to future events.