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 8 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
Hsu believed Retool lacked product-market fit until reaching $3M-$4M ARR
“I think up until maybe three... Three, maybe four million dollars in ARR. I don't think even up to three or four million dollars in ARR, I was fairly convinced we did not have product market fit.”
Hsu's pre-Retool payments startup lost money on every transaction
“But then it turns out it's actually a terrible business in the sense that every time someone sends money, we were losing money. And so the faster we grew, the more money we actually lost”
Sequoia acquired a 15% to 17% stake in Retool's Series A
“In our case, I think Sequoia probably owns, I think it's either 15 or 17%, something like that, or in the Series A, at least, they own something like that.”
Retool burned only $100K of its $1.4M seed before raising Series A
“At that point, we were four people. I think we would raise maybe 1.4, something like that in the seed. And so I think when we were raising our A, I think we'd burn maybe a hundred K of the 1.4, something like that.”
Retool spent only $1M of its Series A before raising Series B
“When we raised the Series B, I think we've spent a million dollars in the Series A, so, so, you know, I guess we haven't really deployed the capital very much.”
Hsu pivoted to Retool with $150K bankroll and 70 days of runway
“We had to raise what the one 20 K from YC. And then we had some money from previous tech internships or something that was like maybe 30 K or something. And so we have one 50 K in total. And I think we're burning something like one or two K a day, which meant …”