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 40 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 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
Kellogg: VCs stop calling SaaS startups with CAC payback exceeding 24-36 months
“I do think somewhere around 24 to 36 months people stop calling you back, so you have a different problem. It doesn't matter how good your story is if you don't get the meaning.”
Kellogg: Startups blaming rising CAC on 'low-hanging fruit' underestimate market size
“I think most startups, when they make that argument to me, I think they're vastly underestimating the size of their market. That if you have a really, really big market, That, that you haven't picked all the low hanging fruit.”
Kellogg: SaaS NRR dropped to 105%, driven mainly by increased churn
“And by the way, if you asked, like, the most recent study, I think, said one oh five. The reason I said one oh eight is I just can't make my mouth say one oh five. But I think it may have come down from one 20 to one oh five, to be honest, and I think it's thr…”
Kellogg: Pitched against competitor hunters, SaaS customer success farmers always lose
“The single biggest sin in SAS is putting your farmer against someone else's hunter, right? Cause they will lose.”
Kellogg: Leaders should be unsympathetic to CS VPs missing churn forecasts
“So, so I just think CS for it, I am, if a VP of sales misses their forecast, I'm somewhat understanding. To me, it's I'm not very sympathetic to a VP of CS that misses their forecast, because how is it that you didn't know?”
Dave Kellogg: Keeping non-performing sales reps is harder than firing them
“The hardest case is not firing somebody who's not selling. That's easy. The hardest case is keeping somebody who's not selling.”
Kellogg: Outbound sales strategy fails on low ACV $5k productivity products
“If you're selling a 5000 dollar a year system to anybody, As a generic productivity tool, I have a lot more trouble getting excited about outdoor.”
Kellogg: Founder replacements will increase and favor GTM executives
“If and when you replace a founder, which was extremely unpopular for the last five years, but I think will get more popular going forward, you will tend to replace them with a GTM person.”
Kellogg: Andreessen Horowitz paused Silicon Valley founder replacements for over a decade
“Jason Horowitz, in my opinion, Put that trend on hold for a decade or more, right?”
Dave Kellogg: AI sales tools will reduce sales support headcount by 30%
“Well, you know, battery came up with a famous slide well now famous slide, but they basically said, I'm going to get the, I think to support 30 sellers, they argued that today it takes a 110 personal organization and that tomorrow it'll take 75. So they're say…”
Kellogg: Hiring Sales VPs Based on Pedigree Often Rewards Luck Over Skill
“Hiring a VP on pedigree value who turns out just to have been in the right place at the right time.”
Kellogg: Stuffing Startups Full of Cash Encourages Unhealthy Wasteful Spending
“I honestly don't believe that floggrowing startups, as they say, stuffing them full of cash is a healthy behavior. Some are actually good. I know a few that seem good at raising money and not spending it and saving it to grow later, right? But most people, whe…”
Kellogg: Ideal customer profile evolves from aspiration to regression
“An ICP, ideal customer profile. ICP starts out as an aspiration, and over time it becomes a regression, right?”
Kellogg: Good CAC ratio benchmark is 1.5 for enterprise, 1.0 for SMB
“I'd say a 1.5 or less is in enterprise. I mean, here we are back to your question. The bigger the deals, the more permission you have. So an enterprise, I might go one five. In SMB, I might go one O.”
Kellogg: SaaS operators should calculate CAC ratio with new ARR, not net new ARR
“As an operator, I actually just do it on new ARR. My first order CAC is just, it's not net new, because net new introduced churn. You just made my metric more complicated, right? You made it easier to cheat. You took away some of its meaning.”
Dave Kellogg: Churn forecasting is easier than new sales forecasting
“Churn forecasting to me is actually easier than new sales forecasting.”
Kellogg: A good sales forecast gently upslopes to actual sales, not quota
“And a good forecast looks like this, gently upsloping to the actual number you sell. Notice I've never talked about quota. Because forecast is not about quota.”
Kellogg: Pressuring reps into higher commits ruins sales forecasting accuracy
“Some sales managers use the forecast as a club to kind of push the reps around. Like if I could just in a moment of week is get you commit to one 20, then I can hold it against you for the rest of the quarter. First, I don't think that's great sales management…”
Dave Kellogg: Startups should hire sales reps in groups of three
“So I like hiring three at a time but not for the Hunger Games effect, for the controlled experiment effect.”
Dave Kellogg: Evaluating enterprise sales reps takes six to twelve months
“I would say somewhere between six and 12 months in enterprise.”
Kellogg: CEOs are negligent if not deeply involved in material quarterly deals
“As a CEO founder, I think you just need to look at the materiality of the deal to the quarter. And like, are you What's the word? But negligence in your duties. Like at some level, if the deal is material of the quarter, you better be in it deep.”
Kellogg: Sales reps' sole job is forecasting and closing on time
“You don't make the software. So your only job is to sell the software. You're not a technical resource. You don't help customers deploy. So this is kind of the, you had one job argument, right? Like you had one job. And it's like, let's just remember, that's w…”
Kellogg: Deal slips are only excusable due to unforeseen acts of God
“The company got acquired on the last day of the quarter, all purchasing got frozen. Okay! Right? That we couldn't have seen coming, right? But it needs to literally be that level of act of God, right, before It's before it's an excusable reason for a slip.”
Dave Kellogg: Using customer references as sales negotiating chips is flawed
“I don't love it as a negotiating chip because if I'm doing right by your business and if I'm delivering value and if we have a good relationship, you should do it anyway. And if you're only doing it because of a gun to your head, because you promised you'd do …”
Kellogg: Outbound sales worked significantly better four years ago than today
“I think Outbound actually worked better four years ago than it does today, because I think everyone's doing it, and people are getting flooded with it, and they don't like getting called on their cell phone, they're not answering their regular phone, and you c…”
Kellogg: Buyers purchase software when they see similar peers using it
“I mean, I can summarize all of Jeffrey Moore in one sentence, which is people buy when they think people like them use your solution, period.”
Kellogg: Expanding across verticals or use cases is high-friction for startups
“The other thing, so I imagine this all as a matrix of vertical versus use case, and every time you're hopping a cell, it's danger, right? Like you know how to sell the custom publishing use case to publishers. Can I sell it to airlines? First, the first one is…”
Kellogg: Aspiring founders should choose product management over engineering
“If I was advising a young person where to go, if you wanted to found a company in two or three years, I'd say product, not engineering.”
Kellogg: Subscription SaaS Companies Were Hit Harder Recently But Still Grow Faster
“The great paradox right now is that people who are in subscription pricing generally have been hit harder than those who are not, but they're nevertheless still growing faster.”
Dave Kellogg: Analyzing sector performance is low-hanging fruit for efficient growth
“The low-hanging fruit on efficient growth is a dispassionate, calm analysis of what sectors do we sell to.”
Kellogg: Marketers focus on correctness while salespeople navigate room politics
“Now, I think the difference between a salesperson and a marketing person is I tended to be more theoretical. What is correct? What is right? Whereas a seller is reading the room very closely. Who cares about what? Who has what interests?”
Kellogg: Investors need compound metrics for screening; operators need atomic metrics for fixing
“If I were screening companies I would, I tend to want to use compound metrics. The more I'm trying to fix broken things, the more I want atomic metrics.”
Kellogg: Sales reviews must be split into three distinct, specialized calls
“In my world, there's three different types of calls. Let me just define them. I think the There's a forecast call, there's a pipeline scrub, and there's a deal review. Purpose of forecast call is to come up with a forecast. Should be all numbers. One of my sid…”
Kellogg: Sales teams must update close plans whenever deal excuses arise
“By the way, everyone should have a closed plan, and every time you hear one of those excuses, it should go on in the closed plan.”
Dave Kellogg: Selling through curiosity works better than trying to act smart
“Selling through curiosity is just amazing, because most salespeople are, in some ways, they're too busy trying to prove how smart they are, be tough and confident, and it's just so humble a place to come from”
Kellogg: Enterprise sales teams must draw a firm line on discounts
“There's a great metaphor, Harry, which is when do you stop squeezing a wet rag? When the water stops coming out, right? So as long as there's water coming out, I'm going to keep squeezing, and then even then, when the water stops coming out, what do you do? On…”
Kellogg: Vertical sales strategies succeed despite higher implementation costs
“Look, vertical strategies work, because the people like me effect, they're inherently limited, and they're a little bit high cost, because you now have to learn a lot about all your customers in that industry”
Dave Kellogg: AI sales tools market will consolidate within 18 months
“So if I were a founder of one of these companies, I'd be very aggressive right now to get myself known and established in the market, because this market will organize, right? We're in the chaos phase of the market, and so from the vendor side, this will organ…”