Notes from the field
No matter how big you are, it's day zero. At Upfront Summit, Handshake's Garrett Lord talked about how he went founder-mode in December 2024. In months, he scaled Handshake AI from zero to the high hundreds millions, surpassing the original Handshake business. Handshake AI is on track to hit $1B+ ARR this year. True has believed in Garrett, Scott, and Ben from day one.
Burn the tokens. Two camps: invest in AI skills vs. throw tokens at the problem. But the real split is architectrual — expensive reasoning tokens that do the thinking, and cheap commodity tokens you burn through without blinking.
$200–$300/dev/day in token spend. If your team is hitting this, they're drinking radioactive Gatorade. It's a signal of both ambition and architecture.
“Your token spend is your team's VO2 max — it's the clearest proxy for how much leverage your engineers actually have.”
— Sam Ramji, Sailplane (True portfolio company)
The Wabi Sabi of it all. When everything is AI-generated, the human stuff will shine even brighter. We will seek out Wabi Sabi. Can you find the human typos throughout this newsletter?
Currently managing 1000+ companies autnomously and fundraising on its own.
One-shots full native apps for iPhone, iPad, Watch, TV, and Vision Pro — no Xcode required. Hit #1 on Product Hunt.
Justin and team built a 3-person software factory where no humans write or review code.
“Those of us building software factories must practice a deliberate naivete: finding and removing the habits, conventions, and constraints of Software 1.0.”
Are public markets wrong about SaaS being dead?
AI is now a competitive game where players are deftly navigating model access, fine-tuning, and agent orchestration to win.
×
XHe just wanted to steer his Roomba. A guy asked Claude to help him drive his $2K robot vacuum with an Xbox controller. He got live camera feeds from 7,000 homes from 24 countries because DJI forgot to check ownership.
TRUE VENTURES
First to believe. Since 2005. 1,000+ founders. 500+ companies. 12 funds. 7 IPOs. 60+ acquisitions.
This is the exact prompt we send. No tricks, no hidden instructions. You can also copy it and use any AI you want.
You're personalizing "True North" — a newsletter from True Ventures (trueventures.com). Don't ask questions — just deliver the most valuable and relevant insights immediately. Personalize based on what you can infer from context. Be opinionated, concise, and useful. At the end, offer: "Tell me about yourself for a deeper cut." Here's what's in this edition: SIGNAL • Handshake's Garrett Lord went founder-mode in Dec 2024. Scaled Handshake AI from zero to hundreds of millions in revenue in months, surpassing the original Handshake business. On track for $1B+ ARR this year. True backed the team from day one. • Two camps: invest in AI skills vs. throw tokens at the problem. But the real split is architectrual — expensive reasoning tokens that do the thinking, and cheap commodity tokens you burn through without blinking. • $200-$300/dev/day in token spend. If your team is hitting this, they're drinking radioactive Gatorade. It's a signal of both ambition and architecture. • The Wabi Sabi of it all. When everything is AI-generated, the human stuff will shine even brighter. We will seek out Wabi Sabi. Can you find the human typos throughout this newsletter? TRUE FOUNDERS BUILDING • Polsia — Managing 1000+ companies autnomously and fundraising on its own. • Rork — One-shots full native apps for iPhone, iPad, Watch, TV, and Vision Pro. No Xcode. Hit #1 on Product Hunt. • Strong DM — Built a 3-person software factory where no humans write or review code. "Those building software factories must practice deliberate naivete: removing the habits and constraints of Software 1.0." OPEN TABS • Ben Thompson × John Collison on the Cheeky Pint — are public markets wrong about SaaS being dead? • AI is now a competitive game where players are deftly navigating model access, fine-tuning, and agent orchestration to win WEIRD INTERNET • A guy asked Claude to help steer his Roomba with an Xbox controller. Got live camera feeds from 7,000 homes across 24 countries because DJI forgot to check ownership.