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 26 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 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
Amazon creates more consumer commerce opportunity than it destroys
“Amazon does more to make the market opportunity that we're investing in than it does to crush it.”
Kim: Average Series A valuations hit $35M in both 2021 and 2023
“Meeting last week or two weeks ago, and essentially a valuations are at 35, which was the same as 21. And now we all know about the spikes and the 20 on a hundred and all of that, but like as an average, it was 24 in 2020 thirty five million bucks and 21 forty…”
Green: 70% of dollars in Forerunner's recent fund went to B2B
“Our most recent fund that we just finished investing, I need to find the stat actually because we were referencing it internally the other day, but I want to say somewhere around 70% of the dollars went to B to B companies.”
Blumenthal: Kirsten Green is a standout investor despite lacking operator background
“Where I have had the greatest success is is in one of my longest time investors being Kirsten Green from Forerunner in that Kirsten loves consumers. She loves retail. She intimately understands the consumer and understands the dynamic between consumers and dif…”
Eurie Kim: Away Will Reach $50 Million Revenue in 22 Months
“I think if you think established is getting to fifty million dollars of revenue, I would say Away is going to do it in 22 months.”
Eurie Kim: Top DTC Brands Achieve Product-Market Fit Within Two Years
“They actually reach clear product market fit, certainly with their consumers in terms of consumer love within their first year or two of business, you know, and it's typically really hard for a brand to start breaking out several years after being in business.”
Kim: Forerunner Ventures invested in an auto body shop chain
“My partner invested in one that's a, it's an auto body shop, a chain of auto body shops. And you're like, how is that venture? Well, it's venture because a lot of the technology that goes into powering that can then start to create a digitally native franchise…”
Green: Scaling VC firms requires managing ambitious talent's recognition needs
“The more people you have, the more you're kind of also serving for those ambitious people and their own needs to be recognized and to have successes and wins. And you just, It requires you to be, I think, thoughtful and deliberate around your org development a…”
Green: Mimicking boardroom behavior diminishes performance and personal authority
“Every time I have tried to say people in the room behave like this, I'll get more respect if I behave that way, I mess it up. You know, because I'm overthinking it or I'm Getting nervous as my words are unfolding because they're not coming from a place of real…”
Green: Could not have founded Forerunner without her partner's career support
“And I just, if I hadn't had a partner that had stepped up that way and had known what it meant to me and the value of that, I could not have been a good mother and started something that had potential to be successful at the same time.”
Green: Effective hard feedback requires directness, respect, and restraint
“When I'm in a position of giving hard feedback, I'm trying to be really thoughtful in advance and plan my words relatively carefully. So for instance, the other day I had to send a note to give somebody some feedback, which also included like an answer to a qu…”
Green: Forerunner intentionally keeps its team small and tightly knit
“Forerunner is still a relatively small, tightly knit team. That's intentional.”
Green: Investors must offer distinct expertise to win cap table spots
“The best ones have people who shine in different areas and compliment each other. And the way to do that is to stand for something is to be known for something, to have some way to contribute where people are like, oh, I would like Harry in the room with me be…”
Eurie Kim: Early-stage brands cannot survive without high gross margins
“Certain categories have structurally higher margins than others. Beauty is obviously one of them. And by vertically integrating their earlier stage teams have the ability to start investing in their businesses and marketing and customer service. Because they h…”
Eurie Kim: Forerunner Ventures targets around 20 deals per fund
“Hey, we're only doing 20 deals in each portfolio. Each of these deals needs to make a difference if there's an outcome.”
Forerunner Ventures invests in livestream shopping startup ShopShops
“We just wired an investment yesterday, which is called Shop Shops, and this team is leveraging that live streaming video technology that I mentioned before, and they're bridging online customers to offline shopping experiences.”
Forerunner was founded on the thesis that retail faced total reimagination
“Really believing that we were on the brink of a complete re-imagination of the retail ecosystem”
Forerunner avoids pre-revenue investing when time horizons do not fit
“And sometimes it doesn't make sense in the context of our fund model and our goals as venture investors to invest pre-revenue because of that.”
Forerunner avoids investing in commerce startups that compete primarily on price
“That's not one where as investors were particularly keen on, because I tend to feel like if you're saying, you know, we're the lowest price out there, if you're successful, you're going to build a competitive landscape where it ends up being a race to the bott…”
Smith pitched 100 investors before Kirsten Green backed Cotopaxi's seed round
“I pitched a hundred investors to get our first investor, you know, Kirsten green at forerunner. She backed us. I pitched a hundred investors in our first to raise that seed round.”
Forerunner evaluated 5,000 deals and made 8 to 10 investments in 2021
“5000 deals last year and, you know, eight or 10 investments.”
Forerunner Ventures is sole firm invested in both Jet.com and Dollar Shave Club
“Fun fact, they're the only firm to have investments in both Jet.com and Dollar Shave Club, two of the biggest and highest profile e-commerce exits in recent years.”
Eurie Kim: Forerunner allocates 60% to 65% of fund capital to reserves
“Yeah, so as a guideline, you know, we, we're similar to many of the other firms out there where we're earmarking reserves at about a two-to-one rate, so our initial investment is sort of 30% of our total dollars, and then 60% saved for reserves, or 35, 65.”