The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 81 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 3 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Petersen: Flexport will focus engineering on replacing labor, not SaaS
“I don't want to dedicate that much of our engineering resources to replacing SaaS. Like I want to build, I want to replace work, like expensive labor, and I want to build our product and make it way better. So I don't, I want to, like, focus on our core busine…”
Ryan Petersen: Flexport has a dozen customers spending over $50M annually
“We don't have too many like that, but we have probably a dozen that spend over 50, and then a long tail.”
Stephens: Flexport Was First Major Founders Fund Check in 2014
“The first big check that I wrote at Founders Fund was Flexport. And no one was thinking about Supply chain logistics in 2014.”
Stephens: Founders Fund Backed Flexport Based on Individual Partner Conviction
“So when I wanted to make the flex board investment, I had to kind of go through the gauntlet and answer a bunch of questions from the team and pound the table. But at the end of the day, they were like, we made a bet on Trey. Trey has high conviction in this. …”
Petersen: Flexport raised nearly $2B and still holds $1B in cash
“We raised a billion dollars in 2019 and then in 2022, we raised nine hundred eighty four million dollars. That turned out to be true. Like that we were kind of at the peak of the bull market and that balance sheet serves us very well today that we have a billi…”
Petersen: Flexport's best customer relationships stem from past service failures
“A lot of our best customer relationships are people that we royally screwed up with five years ago, but it's how do you respond in that moment?”
Petersen: Effective decisions require small groups with front-line employees
“So we, what we do instead is we grab four or five, six people for whatever the topic is that we need. And we'll go deep and not just those six people who report to me, but some usually the layer down from the technology or someone from the front lines who unde…”
Petersen quit angel investing because time away hurts Flexport
“I actually quit angel investing a while ago, basically. I'll do it a little bit here and there if it's a friend of mine or something, but the reality is any time spent away from Plexport is probably net negative for Flexport.”
Petersen: Corporate values are meaningless without financial sacrifice
“Your values don't really count unless you're willing to give up money for it. Otherwise it's just word on the wall.”
Petersen: Flexport on track to deliver 33M consumer packages in 2023
“Flexport delivered thirty-three million packages to consumers' homes. That's what we're on track to do this year.”
Petersen: Velocity, not pure speed, determines startup success
“I don't think speed is the most important thing. I think it's velocity. And if you remember your physics, velocity has a vector. It's speed in the right direction.”
Petersen: Flexport would be 10x better if top departed talent remained
“And if I just think about all the great people have left Flexport over the years, If they were still here, we'd be like 10 times better company.”
Clark: Global supply chains need multi-tenant logistics platforms
“What I saw was the power of multi-tenant, you know, the power of you know, multiple companies being able to benefit from the scale of the total, and the rest of the world needs that, you know, the rest of the world needs that for the environment to pull carbon…”
Clark: True customer centricity requires sacrificing short-term revenue
“You really only know if you're customer-centric in a very, very hard moment where you're faced with doing something that the customer would like, but it's going to cost you a lot of money that you really, really, really don't want to spend.”
Clark: Rapidly scaling companies need external hires to teach internal teams
“But in fast growth environments, like I was at Amazon and like we're in it flexed work you often have to intersperse more senior external talent because the business, the people who grew up internally, they haven't, don't have exposure to the business you're b…”
Mohnot Achieved a 169x Return Selling Flexport Shares at $25.40
“Personally, my biggest tip from a cashback perspective is Flexport. I think rough numbers, when I invested, it was like, 15 cents a share, and I sold at 25 dollars and 40 cents a share.”
Polovets: Flexport was Susa's only deal decided in the first pitch meeting
“At SUSE, we've made about 50 investments over the last four years. And Flexport was the only one where we made it, like, we basically made the call during the first meeting where we just said, okay, like, we want to be a part of this.”
Flexport's $65M Series B Was Raised Almost Entirely From Insider Investors
“Our series B was Done almost entirely by insiders, by people who had been in the series A and even, and a lot of the money came from people who were in our seed round.”
Petersen: Flexport Will Thrive Even if Global Trade OS Vision Fails
“If we really succeed, if we fail, we'll just build the best customer acquisition and service model in a trillion dollar industry and still do quite well.”
Petersen's Previous Business Generated $5 Million in Annual Profit Before Flexport
“Partially because I, this is my third business and the last one makes five million dollars a year in profit.”
Flexport's First Landing Page Drew Foxconn, Cargill, and Saudi Aramco
“We got in one year, 300 companies to sign up, and I thought it would be all small businesses like my little e-commerce venture, but among the companies that signed up were Foxconn, the maker of the iPhone, Cargill, which is like one of the biggest commodities …”
Petersen: Flexport holds less than 0.1% of global logistics market
“We're still less than one percent.1%.”
Ryan Petersen: Flexport targets 80% AI workflow completion by 2026
“And I need at least like 80% of those to come to life and like actually have the impact. Otherwise we're just spending money and not getting much back for the AI.”
Stephens: Had No Logistics Thesis Prior to Backing Flexport
“Did I have like some super crazy interest in supply chain and logistics or a thesis in supply chain and logistics before I invested in flex work? No, of course not. Like I needed Ryan to like convince me of the timing to the market.”
Petersen: I change company direction too easily
“I'm very good at changing direction, probably change direction too easily also.”
Wesley Chan Wrote First Checks Into Robinhood, Plaid, Gusto, and Flexport
“And, you know, I was able to write the first check in the, you know, companies like Robinhood or Platt or Gusto or Flexport.”
Sheel Mohnot: Ryan Petersen Gave His Most Compelling First Pitch
“Yeah, I think the most the most compelling first pitch I had was Ryan Peterson at Flexport.”
Felicis Ventures backs an average of two unicorns per year
“Backing, and I cannot believe I'm saying this, Dad, but an incredible two unicorns per year since founding, including Shopify, Opendoor, Flexport, Adyen, Twitch, Fitbit, and many more incredible companies.”
Customs Broker Licensing Delayed Flexport's Official Launch by Three Years
“The licensing part turned out to take three, three years. So I had this, like, proof of concept, and then I had to wait three years before I launched.”
Fabrice Grinda discloses early investment in freight forwarding startup Flexport
“The company I recently invested that I really like is Flexport, which is an end-to-end freight forwarding company.”
Petersen conducted 115 customer calls in his first eight weeks back
“I've done a 115 customer calls. In the first eight weeks on the job try to do four or five every single day.”
Matt Mochary's coaching client list includes partners at Benchmark, Sequoia, and Kleiner
“On the VC side, Matt has worked with the likes of Peter Fenton at Benchmark, Several Sequoia partners, Hemond at GC, and Mamoon at Kleiner, to name a few. As for founders, Matt's worked with the founders of Brex, Coinbase, Plaid, Reddit, Flexport, and many mor…”