why aren't all 13 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
Disclosure
Dan Lewis: Convoy rejected board advice to expand into port drayage
“I think at one point the board was pretty convinced we really needed to go into, you know, working with the ports, doing container dredge and things like that. And, you know, that was all part of us becoming more educated about this business. And just like me,…”
Insight
Dan Lewis: Freight marketplaces require immediate multi-city scale unlike consumer apps
“The best comparison there is a lot of times when a consumer marketplace is forming, it can form in a neighborhood, right? You can have a service that forms within one specific neighborhood, food delivery service, or something, or you can have one that forms wi…”
Insight
Dan Lewis: The best indicator of scaling is hiring your own replacement
“That is the best indicator as to whether someone's ready to scale with the company and step up and take on a bigger role and more responsibility is, are they able to step back and recognize that they need to hire someone to do their own job? Can they be comfor…”
Insight
Dan Lewis: Core values must drive daily meetings, not just recruiting
“Having a set of core values that you don't just use to talk about the business to recruits, but they use every single day in meetings and in reviews and in hiring and these values, you kind of go back and back, you know, you go back to over and over again.”
Disclosure
Dan Lewis: Convoy used famous founder investors to win traditional customers
“And so when we were able to get investors that had built significant companies to come be a part of Convoy, that lent a lot of credibility and trust to our customers where they could say, okay, the founder of Amazon or the person who, you know, created and dev…”
Insight
Dan Lewis: Founders must own decisions rather than blindly following boards
“Take the decision and own the outcome of the decision. Your board is giving you advice. It probably sometimes feels like because everyone on the board is often more experienced than you or has had more success to date in their career, that what they say is wha…”
Insight
Dan Lewis: Selling to traditional industries requires disrupting established workflows
“Trucking is a pretty traditional industry, and folks that work in the supply chain industry have been doing this for a while. We're not bringing them something they've never purchased before and saying, here's this thing you need. We're saying, you've been pur…”
Insight
Dan Lewis: Building an experimental culture requires hiring from data-centric companies
“And so one of the ways you create a culture of experimentation is you hire a lot of People who have been part of organizations and companies that do a lot of experiments. And then that, that can be both the type of person from where they come, like the company…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Dan Lewis predicted in 2018 that trucking would transform by 2023
“Logistics and trucking today are about where industries like retail, music, travel, et cetera, were a decade ago. A lot of early progress, but things are just starting to get interesting. I think that over the next five years, you're going to see incredible in…”
Assertion Supported
Dan Lewis: Truck driver smartphone adoption in 2014 enabled Convoy's model
“With Convoy, timing was crucial, and the reason it's working really well is on the trucking side, in 2014, approximately 2015, drivers started getting smartphones with a data plan and GPS. And, you know, most of the U.S.-based phone carriers started offering t…”
Disclosure
Dan Lewis: Convoy gamifies experiments by having employees vote on outcomes
“One thing we do that's fun, though, is when we do different types of experiments, especially ones that have more UI or more, we can frame them more clearly to the employees. We put them up on a wall in our office, and we'll have, like, the three treatments, or…”
Disclosure
Dan Lewis evaluated multiple business models with Hadi and Ali Partovi
“And I spent a lot of time actually with Hadi Partovi and Ali Partovi exploring some of these ideas early, my co-founder, Grant Goodale. And then we kind of came up with the right business model in addition to, you know, four or five other ones that we looked a…”
Disclosure
Dan Lewis says Amazon influenced Convoy's culture more than Google
“I think the one that certainly influenced me the most, primarily because I was doing it right before I started Convoy, was Amazon.”