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.
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Founders lacking confidence in scaling their team should consider selling
“So if you don't feel confident that you can evolve through your team, then definitely consider selling.”
Helgason: Software pricing tiers are effectively under $1,000 or over $100,000
“There's two prices. There's up to a thousand bucks, and then there's over a 100,000 dollars. If you go past a thousand bucks, then you have to kind of go and do a dog and pony show, and you're just going to support them and hang out with them. And by the time …”
Helgason: Premier VCs like Sequoia endure extended underperformance without fundraising issues
“A firm like Sequoia, they will, you know, they have to do pretty badly for pretty long before they have a problem raising a new fund, for instance. So, so they're just, I think they're just less worried about the individual deal.”
Board members must act as shock absorbers during corporate crises
“A good board member should be a shock absorber for the company, because there will be shocks, and people will be rattled, and there will be all kinds of crazy things happening, and just slowing the process a little bit down, and like guiding the leadership int…”
Bad VC board behavior stems from LP pressure and asset illiquidity
“When I've seen sort of bad behavior or weird behavior, I think it often comes down to the fact that VCs are money managers for other people, and it's a bit the same as you get in kind of middle management in companies, that you get people that are under pressu…”
Stressed middle managers are the most destructive force inside companies
“I think it's actually the same you see inside companies. Stressed out middle managers are kind of the most destructive force inside companies. And by the way, they're stressed out because they are being stressed out by other people. I'm not saying, you know, a…”
Founders and investors are never fully aligned under any financing model
“You're not fully, completely aligned with your investors ever, no matter what model you have.”
Helgason: User-friendly platforms win through high volume at low price
“If you have a user-friendly platform, and everything else in your industry is really not user-friendly, you could maybe, instead of, You know, selling it a few times for a lot of money. You could sell it for a little bit of money a lot of times.”
Helgason: Developer growth peaks early in a platform's lifecycle
“The growth of developers happens early in the platform's life cycle and then slows down before the platform has finished growing.”
Helgason: Startup founders should strive for a monopoly every day
“You're striving for monopoly you know, and then afterwards you don't have one because, you know, there's rarely any, but, you know, along the way you, you've bumped up, bumped off a few competitors and you have some new ones and, you know, there's some theorie…”
A mission statement's value lies in guiding quality decisions
“The value of mission statement can sort of be measured in the quality of decisions it helps you make.”
Running a company is a liberal art, not an engineering discipline
“Running companies is like a liberal art, right? It's not an engineering discipline.”
External CEOs rarely match the unique internal influence of founders
“Founders have a special thing. They're listened to by customers and the people internally in a way that is very hard to achieve for a new person.”
Over 90% of expressed M&A interest fails to result in deals
“Somebody wise told me once that 90% of all M&A interest doesn't happen, which I think is probably putting it optimistically.”
Founders should treat unsolicited M&A inquiries as strategic learning opportunities
“Is that you should not waste too much effort on it and try to always make them a learning experience or draw some other use from them because otherwise you just spin your wheels a lot.”
Helgason: People naturally create the media they consumed during childhood
“People are attracted to Creating the kind of media that they consumed as children, and we'd all played games, and it seemed logical that there would be some, I don't know, he, well, he felt that there would be kind of a, an explosion of small game developers, …”