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Artwork for Very True by Verissimo

Very True by Verissimo

Alex
Venture Capital
Saas
Artificial Intelligence
Verissimo Ventures
Uber
Business Model
Go-To-Market
Lyft
Fundraising
Finops
Bourbon
Executive Search
Google
Fondu
Expertise Development
Candid
Zimride
Stress
Cortisol
Exercise

Brought to you by Verissimo Ventures, The Very True Podcast features candid startup insights and conversations with early-stage founders, operators, and investors shaping the future of tech. From behind-the-scenes startup stories to hard-earned lessons on fundraising, scaling, and staying resilient, each episode offers a window into what it really takes to build something bold.

PublishesWeeklyEpisodes44Foundeda year ago
Number of ListenersCategories
EntrepreneurshipBusinessInvesting

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Artwork for Very True by Verissimo

Latest Episodes

In this episode of Very True, Alex sits down with Jeff Shapiro, a thirty-year executive recruiter now at Altira Search, former Partner at Viola Group, and one of Alex's closest friends in Israel. Jeff came up through Egon Zehnder, Korn Ferry and Chri... more

In this episode of Very True, Alex sits down with his college friend Tim Lim, FP&A exec, whiskey connoisseur and Executive Director at Edgewood Companies, for a conversation that has nothing to do with FP&A. Tim and Alex both built careers in finance... more

Alex sits down with Alex De Simone, a friend since their Stanford days and a fellow mechanical engineer, for a conversation that starts with a VCR turned into a Hot Wheels garage and ends with a server rack in Santa Clara. Alex De Simone is the CEO a... more

In this conversation, Alex reconnects with his friend Itai Joseph, filmmaker and founder of Fondu, to explore what actually goes into making video content that feels effortless, and what it takes to build a creative business without a boss. Itai shar... more

Alex and Nick Greenfield close out their three-part conversation with the episode that's most useful to anyone running or funding a company. Nick walks through the years after Lyft: a stint at on-demand laundry startup Washio, living in the Snapchat ... more

Alex sits down with Nick Greenfield for part two of a three-part conversation. This one is the Lyft story, told by someone who was inside it close to the start. Nick joined a company called Zimride out of school, back when getting into a stranger's c... more

Alex sits down with Nick Greenfield, one of his oldest friends, for the first of three conversations recorded in a single sitting. They met at Stanford in 2008 through their randomly assigned freshman-year roommates and have stayed close through near... more

In this conversation, Alex reconnects with his long-time friend Yaron Hadad, physicist, mathematician, and serial entrepreneur, to explore the changing mechanics of technology, software, and organization building. Yaron shares his journey from theore... more

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Recent Guests

Jeff Shapiro
Executive recruiter with 30 years of experience, former Viola partner and founder of Everest Search Partners
Altira Search
Episode: Finding People Was Never the Hard Part. Jeff Shapiro on 30 years of Executive Search, What AI Eats, and What it Can't
Tim Lim
FP&A executive and whiskey enthusiast who has worked at Netflix and Twitter
Edgewood Companies
Episode: Cool People Have Cool Hobbies - How to Become an Expert in Anything with Tim Lim
Alex De Simone
Founder and CEO of Avochato
Avochato
Episode: Is Software in Its Final Form? Innovation, Commoditization, and Why Alex De Simone Left AWS
Itai Joseph
Founder of Fondu, creative video agency
Fondu
Episode: Why Good Video Looks Effortless (and Isn't)
Nick Greenfield
Founder/Leader with experience at Washio, Paribus, Ramp, and Candid
Founder/Investor (as discussed)
Episode: Growth, GTM, Marketing, Sales and Business Models that Work with Nick Greenfield
Yaron Hadad
Ph.D. in Einstein's Equations; AI entrepreneur; former head of AI strategy at Medtronic; founder of Nutrino
Nutrino (acquired by Medtronic); Beehive Software (current)
Episode: The Physicist who Hacked Health - Yaron Hadad
Michael Stoppelman
Former Google engineer who built click-fraud defense tools and later joined Yelp
Google; Yelp
Episode: Everyone's Wrong About AI Moats — Lessons from Inside Early Google
Nic Poulos
Longtime vertical software investor
Bowery, formerly NEA and AOL/Warner
Episode: When Pattern Recognition is a Liability - How VC is updating its priors for AI and which ones still hold
Isaac Heller
Founder of Trullion, AI accounting software founder
Trullion
Episode: No Easy Answers: A Founder’s Reality Check on the LLM Boom

Host

Alex Oppenheimer
Host of Very True by Verissimo; founder of Verissimo Ventures

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Talking Points

Recent interactions between the hosts and their guests.

Finding People Was Never the Hard Part. Jeff Shapiro on 30 years of Executive Search, What AI Eats, and What it Can't
Q: What are some specific takeaways that you've been able to give to the founders that hire you now that you couldn't have five, six years ago?
Shapiro advises founders to identify one or two trusted people who can advise them, even if those people are not involved in every conversation. He says founders need support building a strong company foundation, beyond their technical or market expertise.
Finding People Was Never the Hard Part. Jeff Shapiro on 30 years of Executive Search, What AI Eats, and What it Can't
Q: What does an executive searcher do?
Shapiro says executive search helps boards, investors, and founders identify the right senior leader for a company. The work includes understanding the company and its needs, researching potential candidates, and influencing them to accept the role.
Cool People Have Cool Hobbies - How to Become an Expert in Anything with Tim Lim
Q: Should you turn your passion into a job or business, or can that ruin the hobby?
Tim says he pursued work in food and beverage and hospitality because of his interest in the field, but values hobbies for their connections and personal enjoyment rather than profit. Alex suggests a less risky path can be joining a company connected to an existing interest while preserving some parts of the hobby for personal enjoyment.
Cool People Have Cool Hobbies - How to Become an Expert in Anything with Tim Lim
Q: What should someone who is interested in bourbon do to begin learning what is good and what they like?
Tim recommends setting priorities such as value, quality, or rarity, sampling established producers, and starting with lower-proof whiskey to identify preferred flavors. He also encourages learning from experienced people and narrowing attention to the qualities and producers that resonate.
PLG & User Activation with Yaakov Carno of Valubyl
Q: When is the right time for a founder to hire a specialized PLG/activation expert or agency?
When you have a product with high complexity or a clear need to move beyond advice into execution, and you want a repeatable process for improving onboarding and activation. If internal teams lack the depth to run hundreds of experiments or to ship end-to-end improvements quickly, bringing in specialists can build muscle and accelerate growth.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Very True by Verissimo

What is Very True by Verissimo about and what kind of topics does it cover?

The show centers on candid conversations with early-stage founders, operators, and investors shaping tech, with a strong emphasis on growth, go-to-market strategies, and the evolving economics of modern software. Episodes frequently explore GTM motions, product-market fit, and the tension between rapid growth and profitability, often through practical case studies from consumer marketplaces, enterprise software, and AI-enabled startups. A notable throughline is the practical, no-nonsense mindset: lessons from scaling startups, fundraising, and building distribution, along with a willingness to challenge conventional SaaS wisdom. This mix of founder stories, investor perspectives, and hands-on tactical guidance makes it useful for listeners ... more

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1. Verticals: A Weekly Biz Show
2. All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

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Very True by Verissimo launched a year ago and published 44 episodes to date. You can find more information about this podcast including rankings, audience demographics and engagement in our podcast database.

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What guests have appeared on Very True by Verissimo?

Recent guests on Very True by Verissimo include:

1. Jeff Shapiro
2. Tim Lim
3. Alex De Simone
4. Itai Joseph
5. Nick Greenfield
6. Yaron Hadad
7. Michael Stoppelman
8. Nic Poulos

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